Fresh Leads Bolster Pipeline Sabotage's Polish Connections.

"For 12 hours, the yacht crew accused of laying explosives that destroyed the Nord Stream gas pipelines paused during their voyage to stop in a Polish port.

The Polish company that rented the boat, founded by Ukrainians with Polish residency, used a Polish bank account and a Krakow-based accountant.

Polish counterintelligence officials, who have known of the role of the company, Feeria Lwowa, since March, conducted an undisclosed raid on its office in central Warsaw three weeks ago, taking papers and asking just a few questions.

The mystery surrounding one of the world's biggest whodunits -- the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines that ferried hundreds of billions of dollars of Russian gas into Europe -- is deepening as new leads shift German and other European probes toward the territory of Poland, a NATO ally.

The Wall Street Journal spoke to European investigators and government officials, and to several individuals whom investigators have interviewed, in addition to reviewing previously unseen corporate documents that suggest Ukrainians suspected of the attack used Germany's eastern neighbor as a logistical and financial base. German investigators, who haven't accused Poland's government or citizens of involvement, kept Polish colleagues in the dark about the details of their probe until a meeting in late May, said people familiar with the matter.

The probe could strain relations within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as the Biden administration is trying to corral a united front in supporting Ukraine.

On Thursday, prosecutors from the northern port city of Gdansk said the Andromeda yacht stopped at the Polish port of Kolobrzeg overnight on a voyage that German and other European investigators believe was designed to place explosives along the Nord Stream pipelines. They also confirmed they searched the office where Feeria Lwowa, the company that paid to rent the boat, is based.

The Journal first reported that German investigators were examining evidence that suggests the sabotage team used Poland as an operating base to blow up the pipelines.

On Thursday, Poland's government, which isn't accused of involvement, contested that it was used as a logistics base, stressing that there is no proof the Andromeda was used for the attacks. State prosecutors said they looked into the company, Feeria, after German investigators asked them for help in a meeting in May -- five months after Berlin had first discovered the boat and reconstructed its route. By then, Polish authorities, conducting their own probe, had pulled security footage that captured the boat, and interviewed port workers who met its crew, those workers said. Germany learned about the ship's sojourn in Poland independently, using satellite tracking.

The Journal first reported this month that the Andromeda veered into Polish waters, but now Polish prosecutors said the yacht also spent 12 hours in the Polish port of Kolobrzeg, according to a German media consortium. The Journal confirmed this information with Lukasz Lapczynski, spokesperson for the national prosecutor's office in Warsaw. The stopover occurred a week before the pipelines exploded on Sept. 26, 2022.

"The investigation's findings show that no items were loaded aboard the yacht while it was in a Polish port, and the yacht's crew was subjected to inspection by Polish border guards," the prosecutors added.

German investigators have identified some of the six members of the sabotage crew on board the Andromeda. The suspects haven't been named but investigators say they are Ukrainian citizens.

Feeria Lwowa and its officials didn't respond to messages seeking comment. Their Krakow-based accountant declined to comment on a client. The owner of a company hired to process Feeria's mail expressed bewilderment that he had never been questioned by Polish police, and offered to share documents with Journal reporters, but later his phone was switched off and his email account had been deactivated." [1]

1. World News: Fresh Leads Bolster Pipeline Sabotage's Polish Connections. Jeznach, Karolina; Hinshaw, Drew; Pancevski, Bojan; Parkinson, Joe. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 23 June 2023: A.7.