BERLIN, August 14. /TASS/. The Polish authorities have been unwilling to cooperate with the investigation into the explosions that rocked the Nord Stream gas pipeline from day one, Germany’s Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper reports, citing an investigation carried out together with the ARD broadcaster and the Die Zeit paper.
According to Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Warsaw has shown little interest in solving the Nord Stream case. German investigators believe that the Polish authorities "weren’t ready to cooperate from the very beginning." Footage shot at the harbor of the Polish city of Kolobrzeg, where the Andromeda yacht that is currently the focus of Germany’s probe was anchored on September 19-20, 2022, has apparently been deleted. Investigators sometimes got the feeling that Poland was deliberately hampering the probe, the paper notes.
Sueddeutsche Zeitung adds that Warsaw has not yet responded to Berlin’s request for legal assistance in arresting Ukrainian diving instructor Vladimir Z. suspected of involvement in the gas pipeline blasts. In late June, Germany decided to request legal assistance from Poland and a European arrest warrant for Vladimir Z. was issued, but Warsaw didn't act on it. With the warrant outstanding, the Nord Stream sabotage case has turned into a political issue because of the role of Poland and Ukraine, the newspaper adds.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Z. denies involvement in the explosions. According to the paper, the German prosecution suspects that two more Ukrainian diving instructors - a man and a woman - were involved in the act of sabotage. The three may have been crew members of the Andromeda vessel that was allegedly used to deliver explosives to the site of the blasts.
In the meantime, the newspaper points out that according to data from the Dutch military intelligence service, high-ranking Ukrainian security officials could have been privy to the sabotage plans. If further investigation finds out that senior Ukrainian intel officers were involved in the explosions, the German government will probably have to answer the question of whether it’s reasonable to continue providing military assistance to a country that destroyed such an important infrastructure facility, Sueddeutsche Zeitung concludes.
Nord Stream blasts
The Nord Stream AG company reported on September 27, 2022, that three threads of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 offshore gas pipelines had suffered unprecedented damage. Swedish seismologists recorded two explosions along the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office launched an investigation into an act of international terrorism over damage to the pipelines. US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh later published an article claiming that US Navy divers, with the assistance of Norwegian specialists, had planted explosive devices under the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in June 2022. In turn, the New York Times reported, citing US officials, that a certain "pro-Ukrainian" group may have committed the act of sabotage on the gas pipelines.