It's a spy thriller that has the potential to change the course of
international politics: A year ago, a secret commando blew up the Nord
Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea. Since then, investigators have been
searching for the perpetrators. The leads they have found are extremely
politically sensitive.
The Andromeda is a decrepit tub. The sides of the vessel are
dented and scraped from too many adventuresome docking maneuvers while
the porous pipes in the head exude a fecal stench. The 75 horsepower
diesel engine rattles like a tractor and the entire boat creaks and
groans as it ponderously changes course. The autopilot is broken. Other
sailors hardly take any notice at all of the sloop: Just another worn
charter vessel like so many others on the Baltic Sea.
The perfect yacht if you're looking to avoid attracting attention.
According to the findings of the investigation thus far, a commando of divers and explosives specialists chartered the Andromeda
almost exactly one year ago and sailed unnoticed from Warnemünde in
northern Germany across the Baltic Sea before, on September 26, 2022,
blowing holes in three pipes belonging to the natural gas pipelines Nord
Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2. It was a catastrophic assault on energy
supplies, a singular act of sabotage – an attack on Germany.
The operation was aimed at "inflicting lasting damage to the
functionality of the state and its facilities. In this sense, this is an
attack on the internal security of the state." That's the legal
language used by the examining magistrates at the German Federal Court
of Justice in the investigation into unknown perpetrators that has been
underway since then.
Unknown because – even though countless criminal investigators,
intelligence agents and prosecutors from a dozen countries have been
searching for those behind the act – it has not yet been determined who
did it. Or why. The findings of the investigation thus far, much of them
coming from German officials, are strictly confidential. Nothing is to
reach the public. On orders from the Chancellery.
"This is the most important investigation of Germany's postwar history
because of its potential political implications," says a senior security
official. Those within the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) who are
responsible for the Nord Stream case, members of Department ST 24, are
even prohibited from discussing it with colleagues who aren't part of
the probe. Investigators are required to document when and with whom
they spoke about which aspect of the case – a requirement that is
extremely unusual even at the BKA, Germany's equivalent to the FBI.
There is a lot at stake, that much is clear. If it was a Russian
commando, would it be considered an act of war? According to Article 5
of the North Atlantic Treaty, an attack on the critical infrastructure
of a NATO member state can trigger the mutual defense clause. If it was
Ukraine, would that put an end to Germany's ongoing support for the
country with tank deliveries or potentially even fighter jets? And what
about the Americans? If Washington provided assistance for the attack,
might that spell the end of the 75-year trans-Atlantic partnership?
Beyond that, as if more critical questions were needed, the Nord Stream
attack has provided a striking blueprint for just how easy it can be to
destroy vital infrastructure like pipelines. "It immediately raised the
question for me: How can we better protect ourselves," says German
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser. "The disruption of critical
infrastructure can have an enormous effect on people's lives.
There are plenty of targets for such attacks: internet nodes, oil
pipelines, nuclear power plants. One can assume that close attention is
being paid in North Korea, Iran and other terrorist states on what
exactly will happen now. If the perpetrators are not found, if the
sponsors of the attack are not sanctioned, if there is no military
reaction – then the deterrents standing in the way of similar attacks in
the future will be significantly fewer.
But there are leads. DER SPIEGEL, together with German public
broadcaster ZDF, assembled a team of more than two dozen journalists to
track them down over a period of six months. Their reporting took them
around the globe: from the Republic of Moldova to the United States;
from Stockholm via Kyiv and Prague to Romania and France. Much of the
information comes from sources who cannot be named. It comes from
intelligence agencies, investigators, high ranking officials and
politicians. And it comes from people who, in one way or another, are
directly linked to suspects.
At some point in the reporting, it became clear that the Andromeda
had played a critical role, which is why DER SPIEGEL and ZDF chartered
the boat once the criminal technicians from the BKA had released it.
Together, six reporters followed the paths of the saboteurs across the
Baltic Sea to the site of one of the explosions in international waters.
This voyage on its own did not reveal the secrets of the attack, but it
made it easier to understand what may have happened and how – what is
plausible and what is not. And why investigators have become so
convinced that the leads now point in just one single direction. Towards
Ukraine
That consensus in itself is striking, say others – particularly politicians who believe the attack from the Andromeda
may have been a "false flag" operation – an attack intentionally made
to look as though it was perpetrated by someone else. All the leads
point all-too-obviously towards Kyiv, they say, the clues and evidence
seem too perfect to be true. The Americans, the Poles and, especially,
the Russians, they say, all had much stronger motives to destroy the
pipeline than the Ukrainians.
Still others believe that too many inconsistencies remain. Why did
the perpetrators use a chartered sailboat for the operation instead of a
military vessel? Why wasn't the Andromeda simply scuttled
afterwards? How were two or three divers on their own able to blow up
pipelines located at a depth of around 80 meters (260 feet) beneath the
waves?
The story of the operation is a preposterous thriller
packed full of agents and secret service missions, special operations
and commando troops, bad guys and conspiracy theorists. A story in which
a dilapidated sailboat on the Baltic Sea plays a central role.
