On September 26 last year, the gas pipelines Nord Stream 1 and 2 were blown up.
It is still unclear who is behind the sabotage, but new information has now emerged about a German sailboat, which is supposed to be connected to the attack.
– Traces of military explosives have been found and managed to identify who rented the boat, says Mattias Carlsson, reporter.
It has almost been eight months since the gas pipelines Nord Stream 1 and 2 were blown up – an attack that is being investigated in Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Russia. Expressen has made a review of the case, together with the German media, and previously unknown information can now be revealed. German police have found clear links between the attack and a sailboat whose crew is suspected of having been involved in the explosion.
– Crime scene investigations on this boat show that there were explosives on board of the type used to blow up the gas pipeline, explains Mattias Carlsson, reporter at Expressen.
Mattias Carlsson says that they have now also been able to find out who rented the boat before the sabotage took place – a Polish letterbox company that turned out to be just an empty address, a so-called letterbox company.
– We were there and knocked, but there is no business. It is a company, created by Ukrainian citizens, where the director is a female Ukrainian citizen who is probably just a goalkeeper who does not know what this company is used for, he says.
In addition to this information, they have also managed to identify a crewman who was on board the boat – a 26-year-old Ukrainian soldier serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The man presented a fake Romanian passport in connection with renting the boat but now seems to have gone underground, says Mattias Carlsson.
It is still unclear who is behind these people and exactly what role the boat has played. But according to Joakim Von Braun, security expert, the information points to Russia being behind the attacks. This, among other things, considering that the company is owned by a former Ukrainian citizen who is now a Russian citizen.
– The Russians are completely ruthless – they murder, explode and lie and there is no reason whatsoever to trust them, he says.
Von Braun believes that the Russians want to show the West what capabilities they have and that there is reason to review other threats to underwater installations.
– It is enough to cut 20 cables from the USA and we will have no internet left. So we are very vulnerable to that kind of sabotage, he says.