A Ukrainian national, Sergey Kuznetsov, has been arrested in Italy and is set to stand trial in Germany for allegedly coordinating a six-man sabotage team that led to the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipelines. This marks the first arrest in the case, which is widely regarded as the largest instance of industrial sabotage in post-WWII Europe. Despite this development, the case remains unresolved, with many questions still lingering about the circumstances of the event. The arrest, however, has sparked a significant legal and theoretical debate regarding the events surrounding the explosion.
German prosecutors have provided an account of the sabotage, claiming that Kuznetsov led a six-person team on a yacht named ‘Andromeda,’ which was rented in Rostock using forged documents. The team, they allege, managed to avoid detection in the heavily monitored Baltic Sea and planted the explosives at a depth of 70-80 meters. This version of events has drawn comparisons to an account published a year earlier in the Wall Street Journal, which detailed a group of Ukrainians who had apparently orchestrated the attack on a budget. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, according to the report, had initially approved the plan but later changed his mind after receiving advice from the CIA.
Russian officials, particularly Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, have criticized the notion that such an operation could have been carried out by a small team lacking the necessary training and support. He dismissed the idea that a group of individuals could have executed such a complex and high-energy sabotage mission. Lavrov’s remarks suggest skepticism about the feasibility of the account provided by the German prosecutors, raising questions about the credibility of the current version of the events.
Initially, Western officials and commentators largely pointed to the possibility of a state actor being responsible for the sabotage, with Russia being the commonly assumed perpetrator. However, as the narrative has shifted away from accusing Russia, the state actor theory has been downplayed in Western media. The recent developments, however, indicate that German prosecutors believe the operation required ‘military-level planning,’ which adds complexity to the case.
Experts have raised doubts about the feasibility of the operation, particularly regarding the ability of a small yacht, such as the ‘Andromeda’ (15 meters in length), to transport and deploy high-energy explosives, such as RDX-HMX, which are four bombs weighing up to 27kg each. The limited space and lack of a cargo hold on such a vessel pose significant challenges in terms of transporting and handling such materials.
Moreover, the logistics of a deep-sea dive to plant the explosives have also been questioned. Recreational scuba divers typically do not go deeper than 40 meters, making the operation’s depth of 70-80 meters highly unusual and potentially impractical. This suggests that the operation may have required specialized equipment and training that a small team may not have possessed.
Another aspect of the operation is the question of how the team could have remained undetected in one of the most surveilled maritime regions in the world. Despite the increased NATO naval and aerial patrols due to the conflict in Ukraine, the team managed to carry out the operation without being discovered. This implies a failure in NATO surveillance, which many experts find hard to accept. Some have even suggested that the BALTOPS exercises conducted by NATO in June 2022 could have been used as a cover for the operation, with the explosives being activated months later.