WaPo Tweaks Story About Rented Yacht's Role in Nord Stream Attack After It Proves Too Unbelievable

Veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s bombshell February report on the US and Norwegian militaries’ involvement in last year’s terror attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines were ignored or dismissed by Washington, with US and German media eventually coming up with a far-fetched alternative explanation.

The New York Times’ March report about how a ‘pro-Ukrainian group’ unaffiliated with any government rented a yacht and used it to plant explosives on the Nord Stream pipelines has apparently proven too incredible for anyone to believe, with the Washington Post tweaking the story to suggest that the yacht may have been just one of multiple vessels involved in the act of sabotage.

In a story published Monday, unnamed “officials with knowledge” of an ongoing probe by German investigators told WaPo that Berlin now suspects that the Andromeda, the small yacht rented by the mysterious ‘pro-Ukrainian group’ to lay hundreds of kilograms of explosives, may not have been the only vessel involved in the “audacious attack” on the Russian pipelines.

Instead, officials said, the 50-foot vessel may have been only a decoy, “put to sea to distract from the true perpetrators, who remain at large.” The newspaper did not elaborate on who these “true perpetrators” may have been, or just whom the Andromeda was meant to distract. (The Nord Stream network’s four pipelines, stretching from Russia to northeastern Germany across the bottom of the Baltic Sea, are situated mostly in international waters, and their 1,200+ km length makes it virtually impossible for any nation to ensure their security using naval or coast guard assets).

Officials cited by WaPo expressed “hope” that the “true purpose” of the Andromeda in the attack might be revealed to “provide further insight” into the “high-stakes, international whodunit that could eventually lead to those responsible and explain their motives, which remain unclear.”

Diving and salvage experts told the paper that placing explosives on Nord Stream would have been easier to pull off using autonomous underwater vehicles or small subs than using divers aboard a yacht, who would find it physically draining and time-consuming to lay charges over 200 feet below the surface in a crowded international shipping lane.

Some officials quoted in the story also said the traces of “military-grade” explosives found aboard the Andromeda in the course of the German investigation may have been planted there to try to fool investigators, expressing doubt that “skilled saboteurs” might “leave such glaring evidence of their guilt behind.”

“It doesn’t all fit,” one senior European security official said. “But people can make mistakes.”

Blame Game

Other officials quoted by the paper pointed to “whispering” about possible Ukrainian or Polish state involvement in the attack on Nord Stream – something adamantly ruled out in last month’s New York Times story – which insisted the sabotage was carried out by a “pro-Ukrainian group” unaffiliated to Kiev an any way. Some officials said “Poland arguably had a motive” to sabotage Nord Stream, given Warsaw’s consistent criticism of the project.

Marcin Przydacz, a foreign policy advisor to Polish President Andrzej Duda, brushed off the allegations, saying they “could be a Russian game to blame” his country, and insisting that “Poland had nothing to do with” the terrorist attack.

One senior European diplomat told WaPo that some in the West are no longer interested in finding out who blew up Nord Stream, damaged the $20 billion piece of energy infrastructure and deprived Germany and the rest of Europe of a secure and competitively priced source of Russian natural gas. “It’s like a corpse at a family gathering,” the diplomat said. “It’s better not to know.”

Last month’s reporting on the Nord Stream attacks by the New York Times and German media brought new attention on the case in the wake of Sy Hersh’s reporting in February fingering US Navy divers and a Norwegian military aircraft as the culprits in the crime. Hersh dismissed the yacht story as “stupid” and accused Washington and Berlin of coordinating the Times’ “false cover story” featuring the mysterious ‘Ukrainian trace.’

Russian officials have mostly refrained from commenting on the NYT piece, instead reiterating Moscow’s calls for an impartial international investigation. However, former president and Russian Security Council deputy chairman Dmitry Medvedev couldn’t help but respond to the Times’ piece, comparing it to a shoddy “Hollywood drama” with “very poor casting and camera work, and a script that’s boring as s***.”