BERLIN, May 26. /TASS/. German investigators have concluded that the explosive octogen, which they contend was used to sabotage the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, was delivered to the site of the pipelines on a rented yacht, the Andromeda, German magazine Der Spiegel reported on Friday, citing sources.

According to its information, German experts are now absolutely certain that the yacht Andromeda was used in executing the act of sabotage. Traces of octogen were found in the yacht's cabin. The newspaper points out that the substance is suitable for underwater explosions and is much lighter than TNT, thus enabling transporting it on such a light vessel, as, for example, a yacht. Thus, the widespread assumption that the perpetrators would only have been able to transport the explosives to the site of the attack on a larger vessel or even via a small submersible due to the weight of the substance is erroneous, the article pointed out. The newspaper also recalled that octogen was commonly found in both Western countries and in the countries of the former Eastern bloc.

Suddeutsche Zeitung article

According to an investigation conducted by the Suddeutsche Zeitung daily and other German and European media outlets, which was made public on May 21, several months ago Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office picked up a trail leading to the Feeria Lwowa travel agency in Poland, which had chartered the Andromeda yacht used by the suspects in the Nord Stream blasts to reach the site.

The newspaper said that many factors point to Feeria Lwowa being a sham company. It was set up in 2016 and incorporated by two Ukrainian nationals. The company flew under the radar before 2020, but during the COVID-19 pandemic suddenly reported earnings of 2.8 million euros. Today, it is officially owned by a 32-year-old woman from Kerch, whose Ukrainian passport figures among the official documentation for the Polish legal entity.

The woman has been the sham company’s nominal director and shareholder since September 2021. According to the newspaper, she is also the director of several companies in Poland and Ukraine. The Suddeutsche Zeitung does not rule out that the 2.8 million euro sum may be linked to the chartering of the Andromeda.

According to another theory of the Nord Stream incident, which is being looked into by German investigators, Ukrainian nationals may be implicated. Under this scenario, several members of the purported sabotage group who may have been involved in the Nord Stream blasts used fake Bulgarian and Romanian passports to rent the Andromeda. One of these passports was issued to Romanian national Stefan Marcu, who, according to the Suddeutsche Zeitung, could in fact actually 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 may have been involved in the act of sabotage. He is an Odessa resident whose identity is known to investigators. Purportedly, he did not take a direct part in perpetrating the sabotage as such, but rather played an auxiliary support role.

Nord Stream sabotage

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 initiated a criminal case on charges of international terrorism.