It’s not as if there aren’t enough unsolved mysteries surrounding the attack on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 Baltic Sea pipelines. Since explosions on September 26, 2022, which presumably rendered three of the four pipes between Russia and Germany unusable forever, teams of investigators in five countries have been searching for perpetrators, motives and possible supporters – and are not always pulling together. Above all, the eagerness of Polish politicians to downplay the hottest lead so far astonishes their colleagues. A research team from South German newspaperARD and the weekly newspaper Time reported on the first anniversary of the attacks that the Polish investigative authorities were reluctant to cooperate. At the same time, they put forward the theory, particularly preferred by German security authorities, that a Ukrainian commando could have carried out the attack from the sailing yacht Andromeda committed, massively in denial.
Now the Poles are said to have informed the German investigators that they had identified parts of the crew – people with Russian identities. The World on Sunday first reported on this list, which according to the report was available to the Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and other security authorities.
In fact, shortly before SZ’s research was completed, Time and ARD for the reconstruction of the Andromeda-Törns the information has already emerged that Poland had provided clues to possible Russian perpetrators. As if out of nowhere, Polish secret service agents apparently sent Germany a list of names shortly before the anniversary of the explosions – including several Russian ones. The German security authorities immediately began to make sense of the surprising information, but urged caution: the list basically does not change the previous investigation results, which point primarily in the direction of Ukraine.
Poland had already sent passports with passport numbers in the spring that could be used during an inspection Andromeda were probably recorded in Kolberg on September 19, 2022: five Bulgarian names, including the alleged skipper “Mihail Popov”. According to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the Federal Police, it was a case of false identity – a scam that they themselves followed in their investigation into the rental of the property Andromeda had already met. Here, too, photos and data did not match the people who were supposedly hidden behind the information.
State Secretary Stanisław Żaryn, who is responsible for coordinating the Polish secret services, pointed out in an interview with SZ, Time and ARD, based on the findings from this control, any involvement of the Andromeda at the attacks very resolutely. The yacht was neither suitable for such an operation, nor was there anyone on board “who had even a rudimentary military or sabotage-related training.” The crew just wanted to “have fun”.
And now Russian perpetrators? According to information from SZ, Time and ARD Poland apparently speculates that several men are at least partially on the Andromeda should have been, would have Russian citizenship and could have connections to Russian military intelligence. German investigators are reportedly skeptical about this. According to the investigators’ working level, Germany and Poland are closer together than previously assumed when it comes to the suspicion that a Ukrainian commando was involved in the Nord Stream explosion. The transmission of the enigmatic list didn’t change anything – which also falls into the Polish election campaign.
In fact, the involvement of neighboring Ukraine would be more difficult to explain than Russia being the perpetrator, which would serve the existing image of the enemy. And: If Ukraine had blown up the pipes because Nord Stream had cut them off from the lucrative transit fees for gas from Russia to Germany, wouldn’t this motive also apply to Poland?
The information from the Poles also comes as a surprise because cooperation is said to have been rather slow so far. German investigators complained that their Polish colleagues would not make available video material from the Kolberg marina – and would otherwise only react very cautiously to requests for help from abroad.
By tracking the flow of money when paying for the yacht rental, the German authorities had come to a letterbox company registered in Poland and presumably run by Ukrainians – and, as SZ reported, Time and ARD last September, to a handful of suspicious people. The team of reporters had researched some of them and confronted them with suspicions – all of them denied involvement in the attacks on Nord Stream. In mid-September, Federal Prosecutor General Peter Frank told the Bundestag that it had not yet been possible to identify the crew beyond doubt.
The new information from Poland is unlikely to have changed this, even if it contains Russian names. Because that too can mean everything or nothing: According to Russian information, Russian authorities claim to have prevented a similar attack on the tubes of the Turkstream pipeline between Russia and Turkey just four days before the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines. A Russian who was allegedly recruited by the Ukrainian secret service was arrested at the time. Russia never provided any evidence of this.