The police investigation focuses in particular on the yacht “Andromeda”, which was probably used to transport the explosives used during the September 2022 sabotage in the Baltic Sea.
Der Spiegel reported that the metadata of emails sent when renting the boat refer to Ukraine.
The newspaper said that traces of HMX explosive material were found on the yacht, which is widespread in the west, as in the previous block in the east.
On September 26, 2022, a gas leak was detected at four major points, preceded by underwater explosions, on the two gas pipelines connecting Russia to Germany which are in international waters.
An attack is quickly suspected, giving way to speculation about the perpetrators of this logistically complex and diplomatically very sensitive operation.
Almost six months after the explosions on Nord Stream 1 and 2, responsibility for the underwater attack remains unclear, despite ongoing criminal investigations in Germany, Sweden and Denmark.
The yacht probably left the port of Rostock in northern Germany on September 6 with six people on board, including divers and a doctor.
At the beginning of the week, other German media, members of an international press association, traced the file of the boat rented by a Polish company in reality owned by Ukrainians.
The investigators then examine evidence “in Ukrainian military circles”, according to Suddeutsche, RND and VDR TV.
It turned out that one of the passengers had a Romanian passport and was also a “Ukrainian citizen (…) who had previously served in an infantry unit”.
Der Spiegel said all the evidence “consistent with assessments by several intelligence services that the perpetrators will be wanted in Ukraine.”
“We are now wondering if this could have been done by unsupervised commandos or Ukrainian intelligence services and to what extent certain elements of the Ukrainian government apparatus were aware of it,” she added.
Since the start of the Ukrainian war on February 24, 2022, these strategic energy facilities have been at the center of geopolitical tensions fueled by Moscow’s decision to cut off gas supplies to Europe in response to Western sanctions.
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