Nord Stream saboteurs may have used Poland as base of operation
German investigators are examining evidence that suggests a sabotage team used Poland, a European Union neighbor and NATO ally, as an operating base to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines built to transport Russian gas through the Baltic Sea.
The probe by Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office is examining why the yacht they believe was used to carry out the operation journeyed into Polish waters, Wall Street Journal wrote.
Other findings suggest Poland was a hub for the logistics and financing of last September’s undersea sabotage attack that severed the strongest bond tying Berlin to Moscow.
Poland, which is conducting its own inquiry, has struggled for months to learn what Germany is investigating.
German investigators have fully reconstructed the entire two-week-long voyage of the Andromeda —the 50-foot white pleasure yacht suspected of being involved in one of the biggest acts of sabotage on the continent since World War II — and pinpointed that it deviated from its target to venture into Polish waters.
The previously unreported findings were pieced together with data from the Andromeda’s radio and navigation equipment as well as satellite and mobile phones and Gmail accounts used by the culprits — and DNA samples left aboard, which Germany has tried to match to at least one Ukrainian soldier.
Taken together, the details show that the boat sailed around each of the locations where the blasts later took place — evidence that fortified investigators’ belief that the Andromeda was instrumental in last year’s destruction of the pipeline. Investigators have concluded that one explosive used in the operation was HMX, also known as octogen, a colorless substance well-suited for demolishing underwater infrastructure.
German investigators say they are also looking into why the yacht was rented with the help of a travel agency based in Warsaw that appears to be part of a network of Ukrainian-owned front companies with suspected links to Ukrainian intelligence, according to people familiar with the investigation.