❗️German investigation ties Nord Stream blasts to unit overseen by ex-Ukrainian commander – The Cradle
❗️German investigation ties Nord Stream blasts to unit overseen by ex-Ukrainian commander
The Wall Street Journal reports that German investigators have pieced together what they describe as a “clear picture” of how an elite Ukrainian military unit carried out sabotage attacks under the direct supervision of Ukraine’s former supreme commander, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
Authorities tracked boat rentals, phone numbers, and car plates, laying the groundwork for arrest warrants against three soldiers and four veteran deep-sea divers, with the goal of targeting Russia’s oil revenues and its economic ties with Germany.
A crucial lead came from a grainy black-and-white speed camera photo, which German police used with commercial facial-recognition software to identify a Ukrainian diver. Within minutes, they located his social media profiles and other links to co-conspirators. The diver, traced to Poland, was later returned to Ukraine in a BMW with diplomatic plates reportedly driven by Ukraine’s military attaché in Warsaw.
The commander of the sabotage unit, Serhii K., a 46-year-old veteran of Ukraine’s Security Service, was found in Italy using a passport issued in another name. Italian authorities are expected to decide by December whether to extradite him to Germany, where police have prepared a special aircraft to bring him to Hamburg for trial.
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