Andromeda, a 15-meter narrow yacht with a teak deck, has become a key piece of the puzzle that international investigators are trying to piece together as part of the investigation into the explosion that destroyed the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines off the coast of northern Germany. This caused the loss of an income stream of tens of billions of euros per year for Moscow.
German prosecutors announced this week that investigators were looking for a vessel in January that they believe may have been used in connection with the bombings. A representative of MOLA Yachting GmbH, a yacht charter company based on the German island of Regen, confirmed last Friday that the Andromeda was the boat investigators were looking for, but declined to comment beyond that. Prosecutors later clarified that the company’s owners are not suspected of any crime.
A breakthrough in the investigation or perhaps a smokescreen operation
Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 each consist of a pair of pipelines, laid mostly parallel to each other on the bottom of the Baltic Sea – between the western coasts of Russia and the northern coast of Germany. Three of the lines, which used to be full of gas, were severed following underwater explosions that, according to the prosecutors, were caused by landmines, on September 26 of last year.
A few days before, a group of people, some of whom presented Ukrainian passports when identifying themselves, chartered a vessel in northern Germany. This is what a senior German government official who saw a report summarizing the results of the state’s investigation into the matter told the “Wall Street Journal” this week.
The words of the German prosecutor and the confirmation provided by the leasing company raise the likelihood that the leased ship was Andromeda, described on the company’s website as a Bavaria Cruiser 50 model sailing vessel equipped with a small diving platform and a 75 horsepower diesel engine. The boat was mentioned by name in a report published by the German weekly Spiegel on Thursday.
Investigators found remnants of explosives on the yacht, the senior government official said. Since then, investigators have faced more questions than answers, he added.
German officials and people familiar with the investigation said the findings about the ship and its crew and their possible ties to Ukraine could mark a breakthrough in the investigation — or alternatively point to a smokescreen operation to divert attention from the real culprits.
Initially, Western officials named Russia as the main suspect, but government officials in the US and Germany have since told The Journal they no longer think Moscow was behind the attack.
Ukrainian officials have denied any involvement in the explosions. The officials in the Kremlin also denied involvement in the explosions, and this week even rejected claims that Ukraine may have led the attack, pointing instead to the US and the UK. The US and UK governments have both denied any involvement in the explosions.
A key question the researchers are examining is whether a small-sized ship like the Andromeda could have carried the mass of explosives and additional equipment needed, and whether the six people known to have been on board would have been enough to carry out the attack. This is what the German government official said. Another possibility is that the boat was part of a larger and more layered operation. The researchers are also checking if the mission was sponsored by any state, or if it was done as a private and independent initiative, the official explained.
“It is impossible to draw concrete conclusions at this stage, especially regarding the question of state involvement,” said the Federal Attorney General of Germany in a statement this week.
Eyewitnesses spotted a team of five men and a woman
The yacht, which has five cabins and can accommodate 11 people, is offered for rent for a little over $3,000 per week. Researchers believe that she set out on her journey on September 6, from Höhe Dune, a small port in the city of Rostock in northern Germany, on the shores of the Baltic Sea. So said officials and representatives of ports visited by the ship’s crew members on their journey.
According to the German government official, a crew of six people registered with the Mola company to use the vessel. But it is not known how many people actually got on board at different points where the yacht docked on its journey.
The yacht made at least two more stops – on Sept. 7 in Wieck, Germany, and between Sept. 16 and 18 on the Danish island of Christiansø, officials and port representatives said. The two points are near the places where the pipeline explosions occurred on September 26.
At least some of the yacht’s crew stayed at least one night at the Port Hotel in Wick, according to a port representative there. Eyewitnesses told a German television channel that they noticed a crew of five men and one woman speaking an Eastern European language during the days Andromeda docked in Wick. Port representatives refused to comment on the matter.
The administrator of Christiansø, a tiny archipelago owned by the Danish state where the suspect ship docked in September before the act of sabotage, said he received a request in December 2022 from the Danish police for records of all boats that entered the port between September 16 and 18, a little more than a week before the pipes exploded.
Christiansø Island is the easternmost point in Denmark. It is an hour’s boat ride from the large island of Bornholm. At the request of the police, the director of the archipelago, Soren Tim Andersen, wrote a post on the internal Facebook page of the island’s 98 residents, asking them for photographs or video footage of the port from those three days.
Police returned to Christianseau in January to interview local residents, and to examine data from a machine at the harbor where visitors register their vessels, Andersen said. Visitors can register with a fake name and nationality, but must enter accurate details about the vessel. Andersen, as well as port commander John Anker Nielsen, added that at the end of summer, when many ships arrive at the island, no one would notice a certain vessel, even one carrying diving equipment on board, because most of the vessels have such equipment on board.