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The news about possible donors hit Tuesday, as did the news about the attacks themselves: first the “New York Times” reported, then various German media followed, including “Tagesschau” and “Zeit”.

They published information from US intelligence and the first German research results into the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea. In September 2022, the German-Russian gas cooperative ensured their partial destruction.

On Tuesday, however, the tenor was: “Traces in Ukraine”. This did not seem to confirm the well-founded suspicion of Russian perpetrators. And even more bizarre speculations about an American conspiracy that have existed recently have apparently been superfluous.

The investigations

What was also striking: the federal prosecutor’s office, which is leading the investigation into the attacks in Germany, was able to issue a statement on Wednesday for the first time in months:

While the statement didn’t reflect the remarkable level of detail of the German media reports, it at least made them less speculative. If the reports are in the “Zeit”, among other things, the status of the investigation results in a script that could be straight out of Hollywood. Components are:

The British “Times” followed suit: For months, the name of an influential Ukrainian businessman who – without the knowledge or involvement of the Kiev government – allegedly financed the operation circulated in secret service circles. “Der Spiegel” quickly identified a 50-foot (15 m) sailing yacht that would have been used for the attack.

The experts

The plot may sound spectacular and is ideally suited as a script template. But he has holes. The reports point out emphatically that it could also be a “false flag operation”. In other words, deliberately constructed tracks intended to obscure the real perpetrators or the true course of events. Given the processes described, experts remain skeptical that the descriptions come very close to reality.

t-online spoke to numerous experts, each with decades of experience in their field: a former senior official in the Federal Intelligence Service, two technical diving instructors, a ship and boat expert and a Swedish naval officer.

Even if no one knows what really happened. Many questions then arise that have no satisfactory answer given the results of the research to date – and more importantly, the scenario conceived does not seem particularly plausible.

The preparations

According to media reports, a Polish company owned by two Ukrainians has chartered a German yacht. On September 6, about three weeks before the actual explosion, six suspects were said to have boarded the ship in the port of Rostock. They were equipped with professionally forged passports. They loaded the equipment for the attack, believed to include nearly a ton of the necessary military explosives, into the port of Rostock. Then they set course.

Even this supposed initial situation makes Gerhard Conrad suspicious. The former high-ranking Federal Intelligence Service agent can look back on decades of secret service experience. “The reports raise more practical questions than they answer,” says Conrad t-online. One has to be careful with conclusions.

“How did the six people mentioned manage to get their hands on the large quantities of explosives that were ostensibly military?” asks Conrad. Because experts quickly concluded from the power of the blasts and the damage documented by underwater photos to hundreds of kilograms of explosive C4. However, if this were the case, it would likely result in acquisition costs in the double-digit millions range.

“It’s unlikely this could have happened without access to government materials,” says Conrad. “Of course there may be informal, large criminal structures involved. But that would come out soon.” The same goes for the supposedly professionally forged passports. “If these were actually passports in which everything was correct, even the biometric data, except for the said identities, then these passports would have to come from a government agency, whether or not Not authorized.”

For now, Conrad is cautious about the only seemingly reliable clue to the Ukraine. Renting a yacht from a Polish-based company that “apparently belongs to two Ukrainians” is a “clear operational and security risk”. The question from the lenders keeps coming up: “It must have been someone with the necessary financial resources and very good logistics capabilities.”

According to media reports, the following allegedly happened: The captain navigated and steered the sailing vessel to the crime scene. There, two divers attached hundreds of kilograms of high explosives to the tubes at a depth of 70 to 80 metres. They were supported by two dive assistants and a doctor on board.

This supposed process causes at least experts to be skeptical. t-online spoke with representatives of two training associations for technical diving, which is required for the mentioned depth: Jürgen Bäumer, who has been diving professionally for 20 years and heads the regional office of “Technical Diving International”. And Daniel Schulte, who has been training for the “Global Underwater Explorers” for many years and explores wrecks himself to a depth of 120 meters.

Both agree: the depth of up to 80 meters is achievable for trained divers with the right equipment – even if the necessary equipment and gases are not available “in every dive shop”. But it would require vast experience of more than 100 hours of diving on the associated device, as well as significant logistical planning, she estimated. In addition, civilian divers simply did not have the necessary expertise to handle the explosive material.

“The dive should have been well prepared,” says Bäumer. This included underwater buoys to aid in orientation, as well as equipment already stored on site. Even then, several dives would likely be required. “That also means rest breaks in between. It is difficult for two divers to do it in one day.” This also means that the risk of being discovered in the Baltic Sea, which is actually closely monitored, is also increasing.

Schulte also remains cautious given the assumption that the perpetrators acted as quickly as possible: “You can do a lot in one day, possibly even in one dive. But that depends on the actual work on the seabed.” Both emphasize that at such depths one dives “in complete darkness”, even when carrying light sources. In addition, there would be some rather unusual problems independent of the dive itself.

Because many more questions arise: how do you transport the explosive charges, which can weigh hundreds of kilos, first into the water and then precisely into the depths? With rope and winch, with lifting bags? Is the boat designed for this? How long do you have to operate on the seabed to make the explosives operational? And how do you actually find the announced locations of the explosions?

«Finding the Nord Stream pipeline is the smallest problem of this operation. You can do that with a sonar’, says Johannes Riber t-online, who is familiar with this type of military operation for professional reasons. As a corvette captain in the Danish Navy, which corresponds to the rank of major, he looks at media reports as that of a soldier. He is also a military analyst at the Danish Armed Forces Academy.

“Such an operation must take at least a day, because explosives have been installed in several places and blown up almost simultaneously,” says Riber. He also emphasizes the great logistical effort: it is not only about the ship, trained divers, explosives and equipment, but also about buoys, navigational aids and instruments such as lifting bags to transport heavy loads under water.

Not only is it difficult to drop such large explosive charges close to the pipeline: “You don’t know where it will end up. Then it might be 10-15 meters away from you and you have to take it to the pipeline.” The team is under time pressure. He only expects the training and experience this requires from military-trained divers or those who work offshore for large companies.

Riber is also suspicious of the remains of explosives allegedly found aboard the yacht. “It is very unlikely that something just fell out of the explosive,” he says. “It’s not something you build in the kitchen with stuff from the hardware store – it’s factory built, very, very waterproof and just needs to be fitted with an igniter. That’s built and completely closed before you bring it on board. “

Riber therefore considers the scenario very unlikely – as many experts immediately after the attack, who previously suspected the use of underwater drones. For Riber, the media reports do not change anything: “There are much more plausible explanations for the sabotage than a group of six people on a sailboat.”

What happened in the weeks before the pipelines exploded? “I assume there were huge explosions,” Riber says. “If that is true, then the attack was carried out by a country on the Baltic Sea coast that has its own submarines. There are four of them.” Russia, Poland, Sweden and Germany.

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