Germany’s defense minister warned on Wednesday against “jumping to conclusions” about last 12 months’s attack on the Nord Stream gas pipeline after it was reported that the operation was carried out by a pro-Ukrainian group – as Berlin prosecutors revealed latest details about their investigation into possible sabotage.
“We must clearly distinguish whether it was a Ukrainian group, formed on Ukrainian orders, or whether it was a pro-Ukrainian group acting without the knowledge of the government,” Boris Pistorius told reporters in Stockholm at a gathering of European Union defense chiefs.
“But I caution against jumping to conclusions,” he added, noting that some experts had raised the possibility that the attack on the Baltic Sea pipelines could have been a “false flag operation guilty Ukraine.”
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also advised patience.
“While the investigation into the Nord Stream explosions continues, we cannot draw conclusions,” he said
The Recent York Times, citing U.S. officials, reported on Tuesday that intelligence indicated that supporters of the government in Kiev attacked pipelines that bring natural gas from Russia to Western Europe.
Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, also present at the meeting in Stockholm, dismissed suggestions that there was any official link to the operation.
“It’s like a compliment to our special forces, nevertheless it’s not our business,” he said
Ukraine has been battling Russian invasion forces for greater than a 12 months, and President Volodymyr Zelensky has been lobbying Western leaders to proceed providing aid and military support as Moscow prepares to step up its offensives in the spring.
Germany’s federal prosecutor, meanwhile, confirmed on Wednesday that investigators searched a ship in January last 12 months that they consider could have been used to hold explosives to pipelines.
Prosecutors said a German company had leased the vessel, but warned there was no evidence linking the company to the attack.
“The identity of the perpetrators and their motives are the subject of ongoing investigations. At the moment, it’s not possible to make credible statements on this matter, especially on the issue of state control,” the prosecutors said.
The German each day Die Zeit and public broadcasters ARD and SWR reported on Tuesday that five men and a girl used a yacht hired by a Ukrainian company based in Poland to perform the attack.
The media reported that individuals used forged passports to rent a ship in the German port of Rostock, and the group included a captain, two divers, two diving assistants and a physician.
The White House declined to comment on the Times report, citing ongoing investigations by Germany, Sweden and Denmark.
Russia, which blames the US and UK for the destruction of the pipelines, dismissed the reports as an try to divert attention from finding the real culprits.
“The makers of the terrorist attack clearly wish to create a distraction,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday, asking how the US and its allies could make any assumptions about responsibility with out a full investigation.
“The least that Nord Stream’s shareholder countries and the United Nations have to demand is an urgent, transparent investigation involving anyone who can shed light,” Peskov said.
With postal wires