Media: German probe links Nord Stream explosions to unit supervised by former Ukrainian military chief Zaluzhnyi
German investigators have reportedly established that a group of Ukrainians who allegedly blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea acted under the direction of Valerii Zaluzhnyi, then commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The Wall Street Journal reports that German police, prosecutors and other figures familiar with the case have developed what they describe as a "clear picture of how an elite Ukrainian military unit carried out the attacks under the direct supervision of Ukraine's then-supreme commander, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi".
By tracking boat-rental companies, phone numbers and car number plates, a Potsdam team laid the groundwork for German authorities to issue arrest warrants for three soldiers from a special Ukrainian military unit and four veteran deep-sea divers, people familiar with the case said.
They added that the saboteurs' aim was to cut Russia's oil revenues and its economic ties with Germany.
A decisive piece of evidence was a grainy black-and-white photograph taken by a German speed camera. It showed the face of a Ukrainian deep-sea diver whom police identified using commercial facial-recognition software. Within minutes, they found his social media accounts and professional websites with links to other suspects.
The Ukrainian diver, whom the team traced to Poland, was later transported to Ukraine in a black BMW with diplomatic plates supposedly driven by Ukraine's military attaché in Warsaw.
The commander of the sabotage unit was found in Italy after an exhaustive search. At first, detectives had only a passport photograph of a smiling, broad-shouldered man with pale blue eyes, people familiar with the investigation said.
The image came from a Ukrainian travel document which he used during the operation – a genuine passport issued in another person's name, which police said is typical for Ukrainian special-service operations. He had no social media presence, and his picture was not in any European or allied database.
Before long, the border police of a friendly country found a match. The man had travelled there on business.
Detectives obtained a copy of his passport with his real name and date of birth and identified him as Serhii K., a 46-year-old veteran of the Security Service of Ukraine. He joined a special unit on the first day of Russia's full-scale invasion and commanded an air defence unit during the battle for Kyiv in the first weeks of the war.
Italian judges are expected to decide by December whether to extradite the Ukrainian man to Germany. German police have already prepared a special aircraft to take Serhii from Italy to Hamburg for trial.
At the end of October, a court in Bologna ruled to extradite Serhii Kuznetsov to Germany at the request of local prosecutors. The defence has appealed to the Supreme Court, which must issue a decision within a month.
After that, Kuznetsov went on hunger strike.
Ukraine's Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets reported a sharp deterioration in the health of Serhii Kuznetsov, who was arrested in Italy on suspicion of involvement in the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosions.