Nord Stream attack: the tracks lead to Russia

For years, the scene of the Nord Stream attacks northeast of the island of Bornholm was no more than a random spot in the Baltic Sea. Located just outside the Danish and Swedish radar zones, there is nothing but water as far as the eye can see. And below it, at a depth of almost 80 meters, runs a gas pipeline whose exact location is known only to the initiated.

Alert for the attacks

Danish patrol boats almost never went there. Every morning around the same time, a Swedish radar plane took off from Malmen military airfield to fly over the Baltic Sea. Above all, the crew managed to secure the strategically important island of Gotland. Apparently there was little to control northeast of Bornholm.

That changed shortly before the explosions on September 26, 2022, which tore apart the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, sealing the end of German-Russian energy cooperation. From the evening of September 21 something special happened there.

The patrol boat “Nymfen” of the Royal Danish Navy unexpectedly left Rødbyhavn at 7:50 pm and headed for Bornholm. More precisely, on the spot that would become known only five days later as the crime scene of the Nord Stream sabotage. There was clearly something that needed to be checked urgently.

hunt for a ghost

When the ship reached its destination on the morning of 22 September, it was soon joined by Swedish air and naval forces. The course of one of the Swedish ships in the coming days: the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.

The patrols allegedly chased Russian military ships. As t-online has learned from security circles, an association of the Russian Navy is said to have operated under strict shielding in the area of ​​the later crime scene. “Like a ghost,” it says, without transmitting its position data. The ships would have had exactly the equipment needed to place explosives on the pipelines. Publicly available data indicates that the information is correct.

The activities of the Russian navy in the days leading up to the explosions could provide a key clue in a mysterious criminal case: the attack on the gas pipeline during Russia’s offensive war against Ukraine. At the same time, they would question theories about other possible culprits that have caused a stir in recent weeks.

One was: the US was the mastermind behind the sabotage. Many details of the report have now been disproved. Recently, however, a joint investigation by ARD, SWR and “Zeit” brought into play a different set of events: the Federal Prosecutor’s Office is following the tracks of a possibly pro-Ukrainian group that could have carried out the “Andromeda” attacks. sailing yacht and two divers. In fact, federal detectives searched the suspicious boat.

Experts suspect “false flag”

However, the theory of a terrorist sailing trip on a Ukrainian private contract has caused heads to shake in specialist circles. It is said that this is not very plausible. There’s a lot to be said for a “false flag operation” – for traces to be found and intended to disguise the real masterminds. Most likely submarines or underwater drones were used, hundreds of kilograms of military explosives. All this speaks for a state actor.

Some members of the Bundestag on the parliamentary control committee, who were only recently briefed by the German investigators, think so too. You have to be “maximally careful” with the evidence that has become known in the media so far, said the chairman of the committee Konstantin von Notz (Greens) after the meeting. Intentionally misleading information is also conceivable.

Research by t-online now shows that the operation can be more than a sailing yacht.

A week before the September 19 explosions, the Russian Baltic Fleet began extensive maneuvers that could be used as camouflage for actual missions. They were officially joined by combat swimmers from the 313th Spetsnaz Special Forces unit from the Baltiysk base in Kaliningrad. They are elite soldiers, trained for underwater demolition and sabotage operations. In the following days, the suspicious ships were found near the crime scene.

Mini submarine and cargo cranes

Their equipment was explosive: they had a mini submarine and cranes to lift heavy loads. A frigate, a corvette and a smaller spy ship would have been there and would have been suitable for militarily securing the operation. Using position databases and satellite images, t-online was able to partially understand the movements of the specific ships.

The Danish Navy patrol boat departed for the later crime scene at 7:50 p.m. on September 21. By that time, three ships suspected of involvement in the Russian operation could have already arrived there. At the same time, a communication ship of the Russian fleet command left the Kaliningrad base at the same time – it was later to meet two of the ships involved on their return.

ships at night

The time on the evening of 21 September would have been favorable for the hot phase of a clandestine operation: around this time, dusk had passed over the Danish island of Bornholm. Night fell, making visual monitoring difficult. Hours earlier, a group of American warships had passed through the area on their way to the Atlantic Ocean. The Swedish Air Force radar plane would not take off again until the next morning. This would allow the association to work largely undisturbed throughout the night.

Probably the most important ship in the Russian formation for the operation would have been the submarine support ship “SS-750”. It regularly participates in training sessions simulating accidents on the seabed. The special thing: on board is a so-called “Project 1855”, ie a mini-submarine called “AS-26”, which is intended to evacuate the crew of downed submarines in an emergency. It has grab arms that can move loads up to 50 kilograms underwater.

“Most plausible explanation”

Such mini-submarines could have placed the explosive charges on the pipelines, experts suspected from the start. If the “SS-750” were confirmed to be at the crime scene, the Russian Navy would be the prime suspect from now on. “It would make perfect sense to use something like the ‘AS-26’ for such an attack,” Danish corvette captain and military analyst Johannes Riber told t-online. “That would be the most plausible explanation so far for what happened to the Nord Stream pipeline.”

The “SS-750” is usually stationed as part of the Baltic Fleet at the Kaliningrad base in Baltiysk. Satellite images, however, show it apparently passed on the night of September 21. With a speed of nine knots, she would have been able to reach the crime scene at 7:50 p.m. The so-called “Automatic Identification System” (AIS), which transmits location data, was disabled. However, the length of 95 meters would correspond to the mass of a “dark ship” discovered by the American company SpaceKnow without a position signal near the crime scene.

In a similar period – between midnight and 1 a.m. – according to satellite images, two other ships allegedly involved in the operation left the port of Kaliningrad: the lifeboats “SB-123” and “Alexander Frolow”. They each have loading cranes on deck that would be suitable for lowering explosives or mines weighing hundreds of kilograms into the water.

Although they initially switched off the AIS, once in the afternoon they sent position data far to the west, suggesting a course towards Bornholm and a speed of nine knots. They were only five hours from the sites of the next attack.

Moments later, a US military helicopter based in Gdansk, Poland crossed their course. Did he warn the Danes of approaching ships without position signals?

In any case, the two smugglers could have reached the crime scene at 7:50 p.m. It’s unclear whether their short 150-foot (45-meter) length kept them from being seen in SpaceKnow’s analysis of satellite imagery. The company did not respond to a request to do so.

However, according to information from t-online, three more ships were assigned to the association.

Their position would have enabled the frigate and corvette to escort ships returning from the crime scene to Kaliningrad, or at least protect them from NATO maneuvers off the Polish coast. However, there is reason to believe that the frigate previously sailed in the immediate vicinity of the crime scene.

The trail of «Yaroslav Mudry»

SpaceKnow’s satellite image analysis not only discovered a 95-meter-long “Dark Ship” that could have been the “SS-750” — but also a second 130-meter-long. The Yaroslav Mudry is the only ship in the Russian Baltic Fleet that is so long. And there’s another clue to the frigate at the scene.

Some six months earlier, on March 14, 2022, she had apparently already launched a patrol there by Danish naval vessels. For the only time in five years before September 22. At that time she had also switched off the AIS, but can be recognized again on satellite images. What was the mission of the «Yaroslav Mudry» there? Was it possibly collecting data on how quickly NATO forces would respond in an emergency?

The activities of the Russian navy in the days before the attacks have so far not played a role in official statements. Neither the German nor the Danish or Swedish researchers, nor NATO or the armed forces of the Baltic Sea countries wanted to comment on t-online’s request. The criminal case therefore remains unsolved for the time being, but is richer due to a succession of clues. It does not point to the US or Ukraine. The path leads to Moscow.