“According to The Wall Street Journal, German investigators believe that the group of Ukrainians who allegedly blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea acted under the leadership of the then Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
Valery Zaluzhnyi, photo: getty images Source: “European truth” with reference to the publication of The Wall Street Journal
Details: The material says that German police, prosecutors and others familiar with the intricacies of the case have developed, as they claim, “a clear picture of how an elite Ukrainian military unit carried out attacks under the direct leadership of the then Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valery Zaluzhny.”
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By tracking boat rental companies, phones and license plates, the Potsdam team laid the groundwork for German authorities to issue arrest warrants for three Ukrainian special forces soldiers and four veteran deep-sea divers, people familiar with the matter said.
According to them, the goal of the saboteurs was to reduce Russia’s oil revenues and its economic ties with Germany.
The decisive evidence was a grainy black-and-white photograph taken by a German speed trap. It featured the face of a Ukrainian deep-sea diver, whom police identified using commercial facial recognition software. Within minutes, they found his social media profiles and professional websites with links to other suspects in the case.
The Ukrainian diver, whom the team tracked down in Poland, was later transported to Ukraine in a black BMW with diplomatic license plates, allegedly driven by a Ukrainian military attaché in Warsaw.
Meanwhile, the commander of the sabotage unit was found in Italy after an exhausting search. Initially, the detectives only had a passport photo of a smiling, broad-shouldered man with pale blue eyes, say people familiar with the investigation.
It was taken from the Ukrainian travel document he used during the operation: a real passport issued in someone else’s name, which police say is typical of Ukrainian intelligence operations. He had no social media presence and his photo was not in any European or allied database.
Soon, the border police of one of the friendly countries found a match. The man went there on business.
Detectives received a copy of his passport with his real name and date of birth. They identified him as Serhiy K., a 46-year-old veteran of the Security Service of Ukraine. He joined the special forces on the first day of the Russian invasion and commanded an anti-aircraft unit during the battle for Kyiv in the first weeks of the war.
It is expected that by December the Italian judges will decide whether to extradite the Ukrainian to Germany. The German police have already prepared a special plane that will take Sergey from Italy and deliver him to Hamburg for trial.
What happened before:
- At the end of October, the Bologna court decided to extradite the Ukrainian to Germany at the request of the local prosecutor’s office. The defense appealed to the Supreme Court, which is expected to issue a decision within a month.
- After that, at the beginning of November, Kuznetsov announced a hunger strike.
- The Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, reported on the sharp deterioration in the health of Serhii Kuznetsov, who is in custody in Italy on suspicion of involvement in the undermining of the Nord Stream gas pipelines.