In September 2022, three routes of the Nord Stream gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany were blown up, and natural gas flowed out of the sea, shocking the world. This may be the most mysterious destruction operation after the Cold War, at a time when the speculation of "who is the black hand" was loud. Now the case has been three years, the suspension has finally been explained.

On August 21, local time, Italian police arrested a Ukrainian man, 49-year-old former special soldier Sergei Kuznetsov. The German Federal Prosecutor¡¯s Office accused him of being the coordinator of the operation to blow up the ¡°North Stream¡± pipeline. Shortly after Sergei¡¯s network crashed, on August 27, local time, German authoritiesly identified all members of the entire disruptive operation assault force.

Ukrainian man arrested in Italy

According to reports, investigators from the German authorities identified the commando team as consisting of seven Ukraine citizens with a clear division of labor: an experienced captain, an explosives expert, four professional divers, and the commander responsible for overall coordination-that is, Sergei, who was arrested in Italy. German authorities are said to have issued arrest warrants for six of the Ukraine suspects. The seventh suspect was killed in fighting in eastern Ukraine in December 2024.

The picture shows the schematic diagram of simulated negotiation scene painting

Uncleaned clues on Andromeda:

Restore the whole picture of the 7-member commando team

Investigators from the German Federal Police, the Federal Criminal Police (BKA) and the Federal Prosecutor's Office are convinced that their vehicle was a sailboat called the Andromeda. Investigations revealed that the group chartered the ship from the northeastern German port city of Rostock and set sail on September 6, 2022. It sailed to the explosion site near the Danish island of Bornholm, planting explosives on the sea floor about 80 meters deep.

In 2022, Beixi No. 1 natural gas leak point

According to the investigation, in addition to Sergei, who was responsible for the operation, the members included a captain, an explosive expert and four divers, one of whom was a Ukrainian woman from a private diving school in Kiev.

For German investigators, the Andromeda was "loaded with clues". Since the ship was "neither thoroughly cleaned nor rented out again" after the operation, experts from the German Federal Criminal Police found a wealth of evidence on board: not only DNA samples and fingerprints of multiple suspects, but also remnants of high explosives on board, which were compared to the composition of explosives found in Sweden on the wreckage of the pipe explosion.

The captain, who is from Odessa, Ukraine, is considered an "extremely experienced sailer" and has left fingerprints when applying for a visa to the Netherlands. German police locked his identity by comparing fingerprints. Among the seven-member team is a female diver named Valeria, who holds a record for a deep dive of 104 meters in Ukraine.

One member of Versailles, who had been killed in battle in eastern Ukraine in December 2024, was alleged to have undergone military training in the German Federal Defence Forces last year. Another accused diver Vladimir was identified as a photo of a speed-excess penalty on the island of Lugano.

At present, the arrested Sergei has denied all charges in Italian courts and refused to be extradited to Germany.

Ukrainian diplomats escaped under cover of vehicles:

Is there any national support behind it?

According to reports, as the investigation deepened, there was some evidence that led German investigators to suspect that the commando team received support at the national level in Ukraine.

One of the most critical doubts was the travel documents used by the suspects. The gang membersly used ¡°real Ukrainian passports, but the names on the passports were fake¡± when travelling through Poland. German investigators believe the ¡°fake real passports¡± issued by officials suggested that the suspects ¡°have a high-level assistant in the state agency.¡±

When German investigators locked the suspect Vladimir and asked Poland to assist in his arrest, Polish authorities ¡°stopped Germany¡¯s arrest request for days¡± during which time Vladimir managed to escape.A border surveillance photo obtained after the incident showed that he was in a diplomatic vehicle of Ukrainian military officers in Poland, crossing the border and returning to Ukraine.

Russia wants Germany to disclose information it holds

The US has warned Ukraine in advance.

On August 26, Russian Deputy First Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky said Germany had more information about the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipeline than it had disclosed, hoping that Germany would not hide the truth and show real cooperation.

Polyansky also said that the Russian side has been ¡°in the drum¡± during the relevant investigations and the arrest of the suspects, and the Russian side believes that the European-led incident investigation is developing in the wrong direction, in order to ¡°shift the guilt from the real behind the scenes.¡±

In this regard, it was reported on the 27th that for the German government, disclosing the conclusion of this investigation led by its own institutions would put itself in an embarrassing situation. The German government is facing "thorny political problems", and "the Chancellery currently tends to act as if this is just an unheard of act of sabotage", because admitting that this matter "does not conform to the current political picture".

According to previous reports, Denmark and Sweden concluded that it was an act of sabotage, but the investigation ended in February 2024 without identifying any suspects. At the time, several investigations said a Ukraine group was behind the attack. The day after the explosion, on September 27, 2022, it was reported that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had issued a warning to Germany in the summer of 2022 about a possible attack on the Baltic pipeline.

In June 2023, a report quoted leaked information on the Internet and wrote that the United States learned of Ukraine's plans to attack the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline three months before it was damaged. The report said the intelligence report was based on information provided by a Ukraine source, adding that the CIA shared the intelligence with Germany and other European countries in June 2022. The CIA conveyed through intermediaries to Zaluzhny, then commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, that Washington opposed such actions. In the same month, it was reported that the above intelligence came from the Dutch Military Intelligence Agency (MIVD).

On August 27, it was that the head of the daring operation in Kiev was the former Ukrainian intelligence officer Roman Chelvinsky, but the Chelvin Basics denied this.

Red Star Reporters Press Release

Edited in order.