Behind the scenes of the attack on Nord Stream. Serhiy K. served in an elite Ukrainian unit?

Ukrainian citizen Serhiy K., detained in Germany in connection with the damage to Nord Stream, belonged to a special unit of the Ukrainian Armed Forces at the time of the attack on the gas pipeline, the weekly “Der Spiegel” reported on Thursday, citing a document from the Ministry of Defense in Kiev.

According to the content of the document, K. served in unit A0987 with the rank of captain from August 10, 2022 to November 28, 2023. According to the newspaper, A0987 stands for special forces of the Ukrainian army.

Roman Czerwinski – K.'s then superior and, according to “Der Spiegel”, the most important person behind the attacks on Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 – told the weekly that Serhiy K. was under his command at that time. “He performed all the tasks of our unit and did not leave it without permission,” he added.

Czerwinski did not want to comment on the blowing up of Nord Stream itself. – I am not authorized to make statements regarding individual operations – he said. He also noted that the gas pipeline was a justified goal from a military point of view.

Serhiy K., 49, a former military man, was arrested in August in Italy, where he was on vacation with his family. He claims that he had nothing to do with the attack and that he was in Ukraine at the time it occurred. Since his arrest, he has been imprisoned in Ferrara, Italy, where he went on a hunger strike for 11 days in November. Also in November, the Italian Supreme Court agreed to hand him over to the German justice system.

At the end of November, K. was handed over to the German side and placed in custody.

The destruction of three of the four lines of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, intended to transport natural gas from Russia to Germany, occurred on September 26, 2022 at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

According to the German prosecutor's office, K. and several other people used a yacht that sailed from the port of Rostock. They were supposed to rent the boat from a German company on the basis of false identity documents and with the help of intermediaries. Investigators suspect that the divers attached at least four explosives to the pipelines, and after the operation they were picked up by a driver and transported to Ukraine.

From Berlin Mateusz Obremski (PAP)

mobr/ akl/