BERLIN, May 22. /TASS/. The Office of Germany’s Federal Prosecutor continues to investigate the acts of sabotage at the Nord Stream gas pipelines, as it is still not clear who was behind the attacks, a spokesman for the Office in Germany’s Karlsruhe told TASS on Monday.
"The identity of the perpetrators and their motives are still a subject of the ongoing investigation. Currently, it is impossible to make any sweeping statements about whether it was carried out under the supervision of any particular state. Investigators are working through the evidence to establish the facts. It is impossible at this point to provide further details," she said.
According to an investigation conducted by the Suddeutsche Zeitung daily and other German and European media, which was made public on May 21, several months ago Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office picked up the trail of the Feeria Lwowa travel agency in Poland, which chartered the Andromeda yacht used by the suspects of the Nord Stream blasts to reach the site.
The newspaper said that many things indicate that Feeria Lwowa was a sham company. It was set up in 2016 and registered by two Ukrainians. The company flew under the radar before 2020 but during the pandemic it suddenly earned 2.8 million euro. Today, it is officially owned by a 32-year-old woman from Kerch, with her Ukrainian passport on record with the Polish company.
A 55-year old Ukrainian woman has been the sham company’s director and stakeholder since September 2021. According to the newspaper, the woman is also the director of several companies in Poland and Ukraine. The Suddeutsche Zeitung doesn’t rule out that the 2.8 million euro sum could be linked with the Andromeda’s insurance.
According to another theory of the Nord Stream incident, which is being looked into by German investigators, Ukrainian citizens could be involved. Under this scenario, several members of the supposed sabotage group who may have been involved in the Nord Stream blasts used fake Bulgarian and Romanian passports to rent the Andromeda yacht. One of those passports was issued to Romanian national Stefan Marcu, who, according to the Suddeutsche Zeitung, could in fact be a 26-year-old Ukrainian national, probably a member of the Ukrainian army. The Suddeutsche Zeitung and its partners have also identified one more Ukrainian national who could be involved in the act of sabotage. He is a man from Odessa who is known to investigators. Supposedly, he did not take part in the acts of sabotage as such but played rather an auxiliary role.
On September 27, 2022, Nord Stream AG reported "unprecedented damage" on three strings of the offshore gas pipelines of the Nord Stream system. Later, Swedish seismologists said they had identified two explosions on the route of the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26, 2022. Following the incident, the Russian prosecutor general’s office opened a case on charges of international terrorism.