Astonishing revelations of malfeasance at Nord Stream have recently come to light.

The Nord Stream gas pipelines underwater explosions last September were carried out by a team of divers operating from a 15-meter charter yacht called Andromeda, according to a new report.

According to The Guardian, the Der Spiegel article traces Andromeda’s route across the Baltic Sea from the marina in Rostock (Germany) on September 6 to the German island of Rügen and finally to the Danish island de Christianse, near the site of the September 26 explosions. .

Experts questioned whether the amount of explosives used in the sabotage attacks, estimated at several hundred kilograms, as well as breathing apparatus and other necessary equipment, could have been carried on such a small boat, raising the question of if another vessel was involved.

Der Spiegel reported that one of the six-man Andromeda crew used a fake Bulgarian passport, but German investigators have yet to establish the terrorists’ nationality or hold any government accountable. An article in the New York Times this week, citing intelligence sources, said a pro-Ukrainian group was involved in the attack, but German authorities have warned of the possibility of false flag operations who deliberately leave misleading evidence pointing in the wrong direction.

According to The Guardian, the Ukrainian government has denied any involvement in the attack on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which were built to transport natural gas from Russia to Germany and are majority owned by the state-owned company. Russian Gazprom. The pipelines, writes The Guardian, were not working during the explosions, which occurred seven months after the start of the conflict in Ukraine, but were filled with gas which bubbled to the surface, creating a large area of ​​visible turbulence.

Spiegel quoted a harbor master from Rügen as saying that the group that hired the Andromeda were dressed like ordinary sailors and that he saw them carrying sacks of provisions to the boat, speaking in a language which “seemed to him Polish or Czech”. According to him: there were several men and a woman.

Andromeda is a Bavaria C50 sailboat manufactured by the German company Bavaria Yachts, writes The Guardian. The yacht has five cabins and accommodation for up to 11 people. Behind the ship there is a platform from which you can dive.

At the site of the explosions, the depth of the Baltic Sea is about 80 meters, which requires special diving skills and special air tanks, one of which is filled with a helium-oxygen mixture and the another of pure oxygen, according to the Spiegel report. .

Each dive would require the boat to be above the pipeline for approximately three hours. Placing explosives on two pipelines 4 km apart would likely require four dives over several days.

Diving experts say that for such long and deep dives, divers would need a decompression chamber that wouldn’t fit on a yacht. There is also the question of whether there will be enough space for the necessary explosives. The governments of Denmark and Sweden said the power of the explosions was equivalent to “several hundred kilograms of explosives”. Some experts say it would take up to 2,000 kg of explosives.

“We were presented with a piece of the puzzle. However, we don’t know how big this puzzle is. Is it 50 coins, 500 or 5000 coins? – comments Christian Melling, Head of the Center for Security and Defense of the German Council on Foreign Relations.

“Was there a second boat there and was there anyone carrying explosives from elsewhere? Melling asks me. “That’s why I think the puzzle pieces are missing at the moment.”

The chairman of the Bundestag’s Intelligence Oversight Committee, Konstantin von Notz, warned the press to “be as careful as possible with any conclusions at this time”. He told Die Zeit that the investigation “is very likely to concern a state or quasi-state actor, as it is very difficult to transport a large quantity of explosives – up to two tonnes are currently under discussion – undetected in the right place in the Baltic Sea, to transport them to the appropriate depth to cause multiple explosions in a controlled manner.

The German prosecutor’s office said that between January 18 and 20, the ship was searched in connection with “suspicions that it could be used to transport explosive devices which were detonated on September 26, 2022”.

Earlier, the Russian President’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov said that the publications in the Western media about the explosions on the Nord Stream pipelines are a coordinated jam, with the help of which the real perpetrators of the terrorist attack want to divert attention. At the same time, Russia is still not allowed to investigate gas pipeline explosions.

And the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Sergei Lavrov, said that the Western media, with their publications about the involvement of a certain Ukrainian oligarch in the undermining of Nord Streams, had themselves “planted a pig “, because because of this information, the townspeople will have more questions about what the support of Kiev leads to: “Because if they wanted to attribute everything to a Ukrainian or pro-Ukrainian trained diver, but who is no longer in the service – well, no matter if they wanted to throw in a Ukrainian trace, an average person in Germany, as in any other country, will ask. Ukraine again? Ukrainian trace? They blew up Nord Stream, which, as von der Leyen said, not only because of Nord Stream, but also because of raw material problems, caused the EU to pay more for energy.

“I think a lot of other questions arise because of this attempt to make ends meet,” Sergei Lavrov said.

Recall that in February, the famous American journalist, Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh published his investigation into sabotage at Nord Stream, in which, citing a source, he said that explosives were placed under gas pipelines in June last year under the guise of Baltops exercises by US Navy divers in support of Norwegian specialists. According to Seymour Hersh, the decision to carry out the operation was made by US President Biden after nine months of discussions with administration officials concerned with national security issues. At the same time, Washington continues to insist on its non-involvement in the sabotage of the pipelines.