German investigators have identified a ship believed to be involved in the Nord Streams explosion. It is a yacht rented in Poland by a company owned by two Ukrainian citizens. On this subject said in an investigation by the German newspaper Die Zeit.
The operation at sea was carried out by a group of five men and one woman, which included a captain, two divers, two of their assistants and a doctor, the newspaper writes. At the same time, the identity and nationality of the perpetrators is unclear, as they used false documents. Also, sabotage clients have not yet been established.
As follows from the publication, the group left Rostock on September 6, 2022. At that time, the equipment was already in the port, then the crew delivered and placed explosives at the crime scene. According to journalists, in September 2022, the ship was returned in an uncleaned state, and traces of explosives were later found on it.
The article claims Western intelligence agencies told their European counterparts that a “Ukrainian commando” was responsible for the sabotage. At the same time, investigators do not exclude that the operation could have taken place under a “false flag”, and evidence could have been planted to deviate from the track. Moreover, experts admit that the trace pointing to Ukrainians may also turn out to be fake, but so far no evidence has been found for this.
Hours before Die Zeit was published, the New York Times published an article stating that new data obtained by US intelligence indicates that the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipeline last year was carried out by a pro- Ukrainian.
According to the newspaper, the explosives were most likely planted with the help of experienced divers who apparently did not work for the military or intelligence services. At the same time, it cannot be ruled out that in the past suicide bombers received special state-funded training, the article says.
Meanwhile, US intelligence has no evidence that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy or high-ranking Ukrainian officials were involved in the operation, NYT reporters noted. The publication does not indicate the name of the group, as well as the names of its members.
The newspaper’s informants also did not disclose the nature of the intelligence data received, the sources of this data, and also did not provide any proof of the veracity of this information.
Commenting on the New York Times publication, Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensyy’s chief of staff, said Kiev “has nothing to do with the accident in the Baltic Sea and has no information about” the groups of sabotage supporting Ukraine “.”
In turn, Russia’s deputy representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, noted on Twitter that the NYT material confirms Moscow’s position that “we rightly insist on passing a resolution of the UN Security Council on the launch of an international investigation into the sabotage of Nord Stream under the direction of the UN Secretary General, he said the vote on this issue will take place before the end of March.
The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, said that instead of organizing media leaks on the progress of the investigation into the terrorist attacks on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, the West must respond to official demands. From Russia.
“I wonder who allows such leaks, filling the information space with them? Answer: those who do not want to conduct an investigation in the legal field and will divert public attention from the facts in any way possible”, writing she is in her telegram channel.
Sabotage at Nord Stream
Explosions at Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 occurred on the night of September 26, 2022. Nord Stream AG, in a November report, announced the discovery of “artificial craters with a depth of three to five meters” on the site of gas pipeline damage.
NATO called the result of “deliberate, reckless and irresponsible acts of sabotage”. Russian President Vladimir Putin indirectly blamed the United States for the bombings. Some European countries have said that Russia was involved in the damage to the pipeline. Germany, Denmark and Sweden are investigating the incident.
In early February, American journalist Seymour Hersh said that responsibility for the Nord Stream explosions lay with the United States and Norway. In his article, citing a source “directly familiar with operational planning”, Hersh wrote that the pipeline had been undermined in the name of the US president even before February 24, 2022.
The Norwegian Foreign Ministry called an article by an American journalist “nonsense”. The US Presidential Administration and the State Department have also denied the allegations.
