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$730 Million Russian ‘Supervillain’ Superyacht Is Like Something Out Of A Bond Movie

Belonging to Putin's pal, it makes Bezos' boat look paltry.

Image: DMARGE/Gizmodo

• Lurssen’s $500 million Nord , owned by Alexei Mordashov, gained fame for evading capture during a year-long chase.
• The yacht features luxury amenities like a Triton submarine and a garage filled with custom tenders and SUVs.
• After months of evasion, Nord resurfaced in June 2023 and is now anchored in Vladivostok, Russia.

When it comes to superyachts, the name Lurssen always makes waves, renowned for crafting state-of-the-art luxury vessels like the $450 million USD Project Ali Baba and the $525 million USD Ahpo . Among these impressive creations, the Nord , priced at a staggering $500 million USD (c. $727 million AUD at time of writing) stands out not just for its grandeur but for its incredible year-long game of nautical cat and mouse to avoid capture.

Owned by Alexei Mordashov, Russia’s sixth-wealthiest person and a close ally of President Vladimir Putin, this 465-foot behemoth has captivated the world with its daring escapades.

A Tuxedo-Wearing Warship

Delivered by Lurssen in 2021, Nord quickly gained a place in the pantheon of 100m+ superyachts and became popular among yacht spotters. It is a real visual spectacle created by the great Italian studio Nuvolari Lenard and described as “a warship wearing a tuxedo.” The yacht’s majestic build features a champagne-coloured hull and a flared bow, which gives way to the striking foredeck, with the yacht’s nameplate boldly emblazoned across the front, lighting up at night in a soft turquoise glow.

Nautical blues greet guests in the formal lounge with panoramic views, where a grand piano serenades them out to the endless horizon. The dining area, fit for royalty, accommodates 14 guests under the chandelier treads, while the vessel can house up to 36 guests in 18 staterooms served by a crew of 42.

But below decks, Nord shows off its true claim to fame: a cavernous tender garage housing an armada of 14 custom tenders, comprising sleek boats, powerful jet skis, black SUVs, and rugged quad bikes. The pièce de résistance? A state-of-the-art Triton personal submarine, providing underwater exploration in unmatched luxury.

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With a volume of 10,154 GT, powered by four MTU engines, Nord will cut through the waves at a top speed of 20 knots, perfect for long-distance cruising and adventures around the world.

Nord’s Stealthy Journey

But it’s not only Nord’s opulent list of amenities that has grabbed the world’s attention. In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Western nations moved to sanction Putin’s inner circle—seizing more than a dozen vessels, including the $90 million USD Tango and the $325 million USD Amadea . The Nord , however, went on an odyssey of evasion that would span continents.

The yacht’s journey read like a spy novel, featuring a diplomatic standoff between Hong Kong and Washington. Nord was embroiled in an international incident when it dropped anchor in Hong Kong . The local government, in defiance of U.S. sanctions, did nothing, and the yacht remained intact in Victoria Harbour. Under growing pressure, Nord sailed off quietly to Cape Town in South Africa. But before the officials could track it down it turned off its transponder and vanished from radar for almost eight months.

On June 12, 2023, after months of speculation and intrigue, Nord finally transmitted a signal near Indonesia. A few weeks later, the yacht entered Russian waters and is now anchored in Vladivostok, having completed its covert journey. The cost of keeping it under wraps is anyone’s guess, but it must run into the millions.

While the Nord succeeded in slipping through the fingers of international authorities, Mordashov’s other yacht-the 213-foot long Lady M , named in honour of his second wife and valued at a sizeable $55 million USD, did not fare quite so well and fell prey to Italian police.

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The 465-Foot Russian Megayacht ‘Nord’ Is Returning Home After Evading Authorities for Over a Year

The 465-foot vessel, owned by a russian oligarch, was off the grid for about eight months., tori latham, tori latham's most recent stories.

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After avoiding seizure for more than a year, the elusive Russian megayacht Nord is finally heading back to its home country.

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Ever since Putin started the war in Ukraine , his associates and their property have been targeted by foreign governments, including the United States. More than a dozen other vessels have been taken from his allies, including superyachts like the $90 million Tango and the $325 million Amadea . Toward the end of last year, the total of the seized yachts had reached more than $2 billion.

But Mordashov’s Nord has so far been able to escape capture. Back in October of last year, the cruiser turned up in Hong Kong, before taking off for Cape Town. Once its stop in South Africa became known, the vessel turned off its transponder. Still, in November, Nord was spotted traveling between two islands in the Maldives. And now we know that it’s apparently making its way back to its homeland. (A spokesperson for Mordashov declined to comment to Bloomberg on the yacht’s movements.)

Mordashov—who’s been sanctioned by the European Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States—is no stranger to the yacht seizures, although he’s been doing his best to evade them. In March of last year, his smaller superyacht , Lady M , was taken by Italian police.

Nord has so far been able to escape that same fate. But now that the superyacht is back on the grid, we’ll just have to wait and see whether it’s capable of continuing its game of hide-and-seek with the authorities.

Tori Latham is a digital staff writer at Robb Report. She was previously a copy editor at The Atlantic, and has written for publications including The Cut and The Hollywood Reporter. When not…

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For her own security, Cape Town authorities have apparently denied the $500 million Nord megayacht docking at the marina.

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Investigators skeptical of yacht’s role in Nord Stream bombing

Officials believe more than one vessel might have been involved in sabotaging the natural gas pipeline last year and wonder if a 50-foot sailing yacht that investigators scoured for clues could be a decoy

After saboteurs severely damaged the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines last September, German officials zeroed in on a rented sailboat that appeared to have taken part in planting explosive devices deep below the surface of the Baltic Sea.

But after months of investigation, law enforcement officials now suspect that the 50-foot yacht, the Andromeda, was probably not the only vessel used in the audacious attack. They also say the boat may have been a decoy, put to sea to distract from the true perpetrators, who remain at large, according to officials with knowledge of an investigation led by Germany’s attorney general. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details about the active inquiry, including doubts about the Andromeda’s role that haven’t been previously reported.

Officials hope that the true purpose of Andromeda in the deep-sea demolition will provide further insight in a high-stakes, international whodunnit that could eventually lead to those responsible and explain their motives, which remain unclear.

U.S. and European officials said they still don’t know for sure who is behind the underwater attack. But several said they shared German skepticism that a crew of six people on one sailboat laid the hundreds of pounds of explosives that disabled Nord Stream 1 and part of Nord Stream 2, a newer set of pipelines that wasn’t yet delivering gas to customers.

Experts noted that while it was theoretically possible to place the explosives on the pipeline by hand, even skilled divers would be challenged submerging more than 200 feet to the seabed and slowly rising to the surface to allow time for their bodies to decompress.

Such an operation would have taken multiple dives, exposing the Andromeda to detection from nearby ships. The mission would have been easier to hide and pull off using remotely piloted underwater vehicles or small submarines, said diving and salvage experts who have worked in the area of the explosion, which features rough seas and heavy shipping traffic.

The German investigation has determined that traces of “military-grade” explosives found on a table inside the boat’s cabin match the batch of explosives used on the pipeline. Several officials doubted that skilled saboteurs would leave such glaring evidence of their guilt behind. They wonder if the explosive traces — collected months after the rented boat was returned to its owners — were meant to falsely lead investigators to the Andromeda as the vessel used in the attack.

“The question is whether the story with the sailboat is something to distract or only part of the picture,” said one person with knowledge of the investigation.

Still others allow that the bombers may simply have been sloppy.

“It doesn’t all fit,” a senior European security official said of the fragments of evidence. “But people can make mistakes.”

Suspicions turn to Poland and Ukraine

The German investigation has linked the yacht rental to a Polish company, which is in turn owned by a European company that’s connected to a prominent Ukrainian, fueling speculation from Berlin to Warsaw to Kyiv that a deep-pocketed partisan may have financed the operation. The identity of the Polish company and the Ukrainian individual, as well as his potential motive, remains unclear.

Based on the initial German findings, officials have been whispering about the potential involvement of the Polish or Ukrainian government in the attack. Poland arguably had a motive, some said, considering it has been among the most vocal critics of the Nord Stream project since it began in the late 1990s, warning that the pipelines, running from western Russia to Germany, would make Europe dependent on the Kremlin for energy.

Marcin Przydacz, the Polish president’s chief foreign policy adviser, urged caution about reaching conclusions from the initial evidence. He too shared the view that the Andromeda could be a red herring, but said it may have been planted by Moscow.

“This could be a Russian game to blame” Poland, Przydacz said in an interview at the presidential palace in Warsaw. “Poland had nothing to do with this [attack].”

Intelligence agencies have found no clear evidence that Russia, initially the prime suspect, was responsible.

Privately, former Polish government officials said that despite the country’s vehement opposition to Nord Stream and staunch support for arming Ukraine, they doubted that President Andrzej Duda would authorize an act that risked fracturing the alliance of nations that have come to Ukraine’s defense. Polish officials routinely refer to Ukraine’s conflict with Russia as “our war” and are fearful that if Russian President Vladimir Putin succeeds there, he would set his sights on Poland next.

Suspicion also has turned toward Ukraine as the culprit behind the Nord Stream bombings, based in part on intercepted communications of pro-Ukraine individuals discussing the possibility of carrying out an attack on the pipelines before the explosions, The Washington Post previously reported.

A senior Western security official with knowledge of the secretly gathered intelligence said the communications were only discovered after the bombing, when Western spy agencies began searching their records for insights.

“Ukraine absolutely did not participate in the attack on Nord Stream,” Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, said last month, questioning why his country would conduct an operation that “destabilizes the region and will divert attention from the war, which is categorically not beneficial to us.”

Those who suspect Ukrainian involvement said that disabling the pipeline could have been an effort to galvanize allied support in the face of Russian aggression, and particularly to strengthen German resolve. Germany had halted activated authorization for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline days before Russia invaded Ukraine.

Officials in the United States and Europe initially blamed Russia for the bombing. The country had already halted gas flows on Nord Stream 1, the older of the two sets of pipelines. That suggested that Moscow was willing to engage in a form of political blackmail with energy supplies.

One of the pair of Nord Stream 2 pipes remains intact. Both of the Nord Stream 1 lines were severed in the explosions on Sept. 26.

Some officials said that Ukrainian saboteurs or those from other countries acting in what they felt were Ukraine’s best interest could have attacked Nord Stream without Zelensky’s knowledge, arguing that he doesn’t have complete visibility into all the operations of his government or the military. That kind of plausible deniability could protect the celebrated leader and dampen the political fallout of a brazen attack tied to his country, these officials said.

No country has provided firm evidence tying the attacks to Ukraine, and a senior Biden administration official has cautioned that the intercepted communications of pro-Ukrainian actors are not conclusive.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius warned against making early conclusions as to who was responsible, suggesting that it might be a “false flag” operation, an idea echoed by other German politicians.

Roderich Kiesewetter, a German lawmaker who is part of a committee that was briefed last month by intelligence officials on the probe’s progress, said he believes that investigators have not yet communicated any results because the “evidence is far too thin.”

Kiesewetter said that unfounded speculation over the culprits could endanger cohesion in Europe. “We should continue to ask who had an interest in the detonation” and who “benefits from uncertainty and accusations,” he said.

Trail of breadcrumbs

As the Nord Stream mystery has turned into an international game of Clue, German investigators have scoured the Andromeda for leads. Officials first became interested in the vessel after the country’s domestic intelligence agency received a “very concrete tip” from a Western intelligence service that the boat may have been involved in the sabotage, according to a German security official, who declined to name the country that shared the information.

German authorities determined that the tip was credible and passed the information onto law enforcement officials, the official said.

The Andromeda left a virtual trail of breadcrumbs as it set off from a German port for the Baltic Sea, according to investigators.

Mola Yachting rented out the boat on Sept. 6 from Hohe Düne harbor in Warnemünde, a German port town on the Baltic, near Rostock, which is about 145 miles north of Berlin. The rental location is in plain sight of a huge vacation complex, home to a five-star hotel, seven restaurants and a high-end shopping area, with views across the harbor.

Investigators said the boat then traveled in a northeasterly direction, stopping in Hafendorf Wiek, or “Wiek harbor village,” on the northernmost part of Rügen island.

When a reporter from The Post visited in early March, the area had emptied out, save for the odd local dog-walker braving the biting temperatures. A half-dozen yachts bobbed in the water where the Andromeda is said to have been. “Investigators came [in] mid-January, and we helped them where we could,” said the harbor master, René Redmann.

“It wouldn’t be unusual for a boat setting off from Rostock with the destination of Bornholm to stop in Wiek,” Redmann noted, referring to a Danish island near the site of the Nord Stream explosion. Investigators believe that the Andromeda left Hafendorf Wiek and moored off the coast of the tiny island Christianso, near Bornholm.

A stop in Hafendork Wiek may have offered the Andromeda’s crew a final chance to stock up on supplies before heading to the explosion site.

“Lots of things are loaded on the boats … including groceries,” Redmann said. “Some people stop to tank up on fuel.” Redmann would not confirm that the Andromeda stopped there, citing the continuing law enforcement investigation. But he said he wouldn’t have any record of the crew’s identities, just the name of the boat, the number of people aboard and the type of vessel.

“Recording names of passengers is the job of the charter,” Redmann said.

Thomas Richter, co-owner of the charter company Mola, said that the search of the Andromeda took place in Dranske, on Rügen island, where the yacht was kept in winter storage. He declined to share further details.

‘Don’t talk about Nord Stream’

For all the intrigue around who bombed the pipeline, some Western officials are not so eager to find out.

At gatherings of European and NATO policymakers, officials have settled into a rhythm, said one senior European diplomat: “Don’t talk about Nord Stream.” Leaders see little benefit from digging too deeply and finding an uncomfortable answer, the diplomat said, echoing sentiments of several peers in other countries who said they would rather not have to deal with the possibility that Ukraine or allies were involved.

Even if there were a clear culprit, it would not likely stop the provision of arms to Ukraine, diminish the level of anger with Russia or alter the strategy of the war, these officials argued. The attack happened months ago and allies have continued to commit more and heavier weapons to the fight, which faces a pivotal period in the next few months.

Since no country is yet ruled out from having carried out the attack, officials said they were loath to share suspicions that could accidentally anger a friendly government that might have had a hand in bombing Nord Stream.

In the absence of concrete clues, an awkward silence has prevailed.

“It’s like a corpse at a family gathering,” the European diplomat said, reaching for a grim analogy. Everyone can see there’s a body lying there, but pretends things are normal. “It’s better not to know.”

Harris reported from Warsaw and Washington, Mekhennet from Berlin and Washington, Morris from Berlin, Birnbaum from Washington and Brady from Rügen and Rostock, Germany. Meg Kelly in Washington contributed to this report.

What to know about Ukraine’s counteroffensive

The latest: The Ukrainian military has launched a long-anticipated counteroffensive against occupying Russian forces , opening a crucial phase in the war aimed at restoring Ukraine’s territorial sovereignty and preserving Western support in its fight against Moscow.

The fight: Ukrainian troops have intensified their attacks on the front line in the southeast region, according to multiple individuals in the country’s armed forces, in a significant push toward Russian-occupied territory.

The front line: The Washington Post has mapped out the 600-mile front line between Ukrainian and Russian forces .

How you can help: Here are ways those in the United States can support the Ukrainian people as well as what people around the world have been donating.

Read our full coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war . Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for updates and exclusive video .

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Online Sleuths Untangle the Mystery of the Nord Stream Sabotage

It’s been six months since the Nord Stream gas pipelines were ruptured by a series of explosions, leaking tons of methane into the environment and  igniting an international whodunit . Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and an unnamed pro-Ukrainian group have all been accused of planting explosives on the Baltic Sea pipelines in recent months. But half a year since the sabotage took place, the mystery remains unsolved.

Digital sleuths are stepping in to help provide clarity around bombshell claims about who was behind the attacks. Open source intelligence (OSINT) researchers are using public sources of data in their efforts to verify or debunk the snippets of information published about the Nord Stream explosions. They’re providing a glimpse of clarity to an incident that’s shrouded by secrecy and international politics.

Since early February, multiple media reports have claimed to provide new information about who could have attacked the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines on September 26. However, the reports have largely been based on anonymous sources, including unnamed intelligence officials and leaks from government investigations into the attacks.

First, American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published claims that the US was behind attacks in a  post on Substack . This was followed by reports in The New York Times and German publication  Die Zeit claiming a pro-Ukrainian group was responsible. (European leaders have  previously speculated Russia could be behind the attacks, and Russia has  blamed the United Kingdom .) No country has claimed responsibility for the blasts so far, and official investigations are ongoing.

Each of the recent reports has provided little hard evidence to show what may actually have happened, while helping to fuel speculation. Jacob Kaarsbo, a senior analyst at Think Tank Europa, who previously worked in Danish intelligence for 15 years, says the claims have been “remarkable” but also “speculative” in nature. “In my mind, they don’t really alter the picture,” Kaarsbo says, adding the attacks look highly complex and would likely be “very hard to pull off without it being a state actor or at least with state sponsorship.”

In the absence of official information, OSINT researchers have been trying to plug the gaps by examining the claims of the new reports with public data.  OSINT analysis is a powerful way to determine how an event may have unfolded. For instance, flight- and ship-tracking data can reveal movements around the world, satellite images show Earth in near real-time, while small clues in the backgrounds of photos and videos can reveal where they were taken. The techniques have  uncovered Russian assassins , spotted North Korea evading  international trading sanctions , identified  potential war criminals , and  documented pollution .

For the Nord Stream blasts, there was little OSINT available. Researchers  identified “dark ships” in the area . But underwater, there are obviously limited data sources that can be tapped into—cameras and sensors don’t monitor every inch of the pipelines. “OSINT probably won’t break this case open, but it can be used to verify or strengthen other hypotheses,” says Oliver Alexander, an analyst who focuses on OSINT and has been closely looking at the Nord Stream blasts. “I do think that it’s more of a verification tool.”

Alexander and others have been examining the claims made so far. The New York Times and  Die Zeit  both published stories on March 7 claiming a Ukrainian group was behind the sabotage. (Ukraine has  denied any involvement .)  Die Zeit published more details, claiming German investigators searched a yacht rented from a company based in Poland, knew where the yacht sailed from, and that six people were involved in the operation, including two divers. All of them used forged passports, the publication reported.

The details were enough for OSINT researchers to start tracking down which yacht could have been used. Alexander, as well as contributors to the open-source investigative outlet Bellingcat, started following the breadcrumbs, narrowing down potential vessels. A follow-up  report soon named the boat under suspicion as the Andromeda , a 15-meter-long yacht. Webcam footage from the harbor where it is  believed the Andromeda was docked shows the movement of a boat around the time reported by the publications. (The Andromeda is  reportedly too small to be required to use ship-tracking systems.)  Years-old videos   and photos of the boat have surfaced. The sleuthing adds public details to the reports.

Similarly, OSINT has been used to debunk Hersh’s story claiming the United States was behind the explosions. (Hersh has  defended his article , while US officials have said it was false.) Alexander has used, among other things,  ship-tracking data to show Norwegian ships were “accounted for” and not in a “position to have placed the explosives on the Nord Stream pipeline, as claimed by Hersh.” Another detailed article from Norwegian journalists has similarly  poured cold water on Hersh’s claims , partly using satellite data.

The sabotage was always likely to be controversial and surrounded by rumors: Russia’s full-scale invasion of  Ukraine in February 2022 has heated global tensions and put pressure on diplomats around the world. There has been a whirlwind of disinformation around the blasts, further muddying the waters. Mary Blankenship, a disinformation researcher at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who has analyzed online conversations around the war, says the “high uncertainty and high stakes” of the incident help to fuel the spread of disinformation. 

“This is an issue that exploits existing worries, tensions, and grievances within European audiences,” Blankenship says. Initially, the earliest disinformation on Twitter about the explosions came from conspiracy theorists, Blankenship says, who shared a pre-war statement from US president Joe Biden, where he said there would be  an “end” to Nord Stream 2 if Russia invaded Ukraine . Since then, Russia and China have taken to  sharing unproven theories about the sabotage, the researcher says.

“Disinformation actors, but also official representatives of the [Russian] regime, stepped up their efforts on every news story that was published on this—however contradictory about the origins of the blast—be it a blog post by Seymour Hersh or a  New York Times article,” says Peter Stano, an EU spokesperson, adding most disinformation narratives have circled around the idea that “the US is to blame.” The EU’s disinformation monitoring project, EUvsDisinfo, has  flagged more than 150 pieces of disinformation linked to the Nord Stream explosions, including those building on Hersh’s story. “EUvsDisinfo experts also found that Moscow considers the recent materials in German-language media a hoax,” Stano says.

While OSINT is helping to provide bits of extra detail on the claims about the Nord Stream attacks, it is likely that reports debunking dubious claims reach fewer people than disinformation or claims that are hard to verify. “It does not nearly get the same level of engagement,” Blankenship says. “You can have a book’s worth of evidence for it, and they would still find a way to discount it.”

And while OSINT research can answer some questions, it has its limits and can also raise new ones. Kaarsbo, the former Danish intelligence official, and other experts have pointed out that the Andromeda is a relatively small yacht, and it may have been unable to carry the amount of explosives needed to blow the pipelines. “The Andromeda is quite likely a piece of the puzzle, but I don’t think it’s a bigger piece of the puzzle that everyone makes it out to be,” Alexander says. “I think there are a lot of the big pieces missing.” Detailed sonar imagery of the damaged pipes would help people to understand what happened underwater, Alexander adds.

Ultimately, there is still very little hard public evidence—either from governments or publicly available online—about who may have been behind the attacks. Behind closed doors, intelligence agencies likely have more data and theories on the potential culprits. However, investigators in Sweden and Denmark refused to comment on their progress, while Germany’s Office of the Federal Prosecutor confirmed it had searched a yacht and is continuing to examine for explosives. German officials have also said there could be a  chance of a “false flag” operation to smear Ukraine . And when the countries complete their investigations, there’s no guarantee they will publish their findings or evidence to back them up. The mystery continues.

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Suspicions Multiply as Nord Stream Sabotage Remains Unsolved

Intelligence leaks surrounding the sabotage of the pipelines have provided more questions than answers. It may be in no one’s interest to reveal more.

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By Erika Solomon

Erika Solomon traveled to Copenhagen and the island of Christianso in Denmark, as well as to the ports of Rostock and Wiek in northern Germany, to report and write this article.

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Russian and Danish naval vessels that disappear in the Baltic Sea, days before an underwater pipeline blast. A German charter yacht with traces of explosives, and a crew with forged passports. Blurry photographs of a mysterious object found near a single surviving pipeline strand.

These are the latest clues in the hunt to reveal who, last Sept. 26, blew up most of the Kremlin-backed Nord Stream pipelines, some 260 feet below the Baltic Sea, that were once the largest supplier of Europe’s natural gas.

Nord Stream

pipelines 1 and 2

Sites of leaks

Christianso

Kaliningrad

Just a few weeks ago, New York Times reporting on new intelligence, along with German police findings reported by the German media, suggested a possible solution to the Nord Stream puzzle: pro-Ukraine operatives renting a German pleasure boat and pulling off a fantastical covert mission.

Since then, a flurry of new findings and competing narratives has sown distrust among Western allies and presented an opening for Russian diplomatic pressure that has raised the geopolitical stakes in Europe’s Baltic region.

Nowhere is the tension felt more strongly than among the 98 residents of Denmark’s Christianso — an island so tiny, you can walk across it in 10 minutes. Living just 12 nautical miles away from the blast site, everyone from the herring pickler to the inn chef sees skies and waters filled with foreboding.

“Before the blast, no one talked about Nord Stream. I didn’t even know how close we were until it happened,” said Soren Thiim Andersen, governor of Christianso. “Afterward, we all felt exposed. We were all wondering: What really just happened here?”

The pleasure boat at the center of the German investigation, the Andromeda, docked at Christianso’s stone harbor after being chartered in the northern German port of Rostock on Sept. 5 and making an overnight stop at Wiek, a more obscure north German port with no security cameras and little oversight.

A local port worker, who asked not to be identified because of ongoing investigations, told The Times that he remembered the visit unusually well: He had repeatedly tried to speak to the crew, first in German, then English. Instead of attempting any kind of reply, in any language, one man simply handed him the docking fee and turned away.

The Andromeda now sits in dry dock overlooking the Baltic Sea, its innards pulled out by investigators. Three German officials told The Times that the investigators had found traces of explosives on the boat, and discovered that two crew members had used fake Bulgarian passports.

That hunt led back to Christianso, where Mr. Andersen, the governor, said that in December, the Danish police had him write a Facebook post, instructing residents to send photographs of the harbor or boats from Sept. 16 to Sept. 18, around the time the Andromeda is believed to have docked. Investigators arrived a month later to interview residents and check the photos.

Christianso locals scoffed at the idea a 50-foot pleasure yacht could pull off such a spectacular attack — and so have naval experts from Germany, Sweden and Denmark.

They argue that even with skilled divers, it would be extremely challenging for a six-person crew to plant the explosives needed on the seabed some 262 feet below, and create blasts registering 2.5 on the Richter scale.

“Knowing how the explosion would work, with the sea pressure at those depths — you need very specialized knowledge. How do the physics play out?” said Johannes Riber, a naval officer and analyst at Denmark’s Institute for Strategy and War Studies, who called it a “James Bond” theory.

Whether the Andromeda was a decoy or part of a broader mission, he said, remained unanswerable. But the most plausible attack, he said, required an undersea drone or mini submarine to plant the explosives, and either naval or professional underwater drilling vessels.

Mr. Riber and others also pointed to photographs of the aftermath — pipes bent backward, cracks and craters on the seabed — as traces of a massive bomb, something in the range of 1,000 to 1,500 kilograms.

“This was not a few pieces of plastic explosives,” Mr. Riber said. “That is a powerful explosion at play.”

Yet one pipeline expert and a professional diver who was part of the team that laid the Nord Stream 2 pipelines last year disagreed. Both the expert and the diver, who works regularly in the Baltic Sea, insisted a small plastic explosive could do the job, as long as it was placed near a seam of the pipeline. They asked not to be identified because they were speaking without authorization from Nord Stream.

“It is like lighting a match next to a leaking gasoline pump — the gas is all you need,” said one diver.

By the end of March, Russian diplomats threw up yet another twist: They revealed that in February, Nord Stream 2 had hired a vessel to inspect its pipelines and discovered an unidentified object next to a seam of its sole undamaged strand, about 19 miles from the explosion sites. The company alerted both Russia and Denmark, which controls the waters in which the object was spotted.

Even under pressure from Vladimir V. Putin’s top foreign policy adviser, who summoned Denmark’s chargé d’affaires in Moscow, Denmark initially resisted offering much information to the company or Russia, aside from publicly releasing a blurry photo of a 12-inch-long cylinder, covered in algae.

Last week, Danish authorities allowed Nord Stream 2 to observe their dive to recover the object — releasing photographs of a now cleaned-off dark cylinder. Denmark’s ministry of defense said it might be part of a maritime smoke buoy.

But Russia’s ambassador to Denmark, Vladimir Barbin, told The Times that experts in Moscow believed the cylinder was part of an explosive device.

“The continued secrecy of the ongoing investigation by Denmark, Germany and Sweden, as well as the refusal to cooperate with Russia, undermine its credibility,” Mr. Barbin wrote in a statement to The Times.

And Mr. Putin himself continues to use the incident to pressure Denmark to back Moscow’s demands for a joint international investigation. On April 5, he warned the situation in the Baltic Sea was becoming “turbulent in a literal sense.”

Even as Moscow pushes for a joint probe, other findings are pointing fingers back at Russia.

The German news website T-Online worked in late March with an open-source investigator, Oliver Alexander, to present the paths of six Russian vessels whose names were given to them by what they described as an “intelligence source from a NATO country.”

Their findings showed the boats disappeared from satellite signals on Sept. 21 — around the time Christianso residents spotted vessels that disappeared from their apps — after veering off course from a publicly announced Russian maritime exercise.

That information could match an early lead that one German official told The Times was explored late last year by Germany’s intelligence services who had also tracked Russian vessels from naval exercises, but were unable to bridge an approximately 20-nautical-mile gap between where some veered off course and the sites of the blasts.

The open source investigation also discovered a Danish naval ship, the Nymfen, which had sailed toward the same area as the Russian vessels in the hours after they disappeared. It too had turned off its signal upon reaching the site.

A day later, a Swedish fighter jet took an unusual flight path over the area, followed by a Swedish naval vessel that lingered near the spot where the Nord Stream 1 pipelines later exploded.

The researchers argued that perhaps these forces went to check the site — hinting that some countries may know more than they have said thus far.

Denmark is the most tight-lipped, but security sources who spoke on condition of anonymity told The Times that Danish and Swedish investigators have been wary of the latest German findings, and feel a sense of pressure to counter that narrative.

On Thursday, Mats Ljungqvist, Sweden’s senior prosecutor in the case, told the Swedish newspaper Norrkopings Tidningar that although his probe had not ruled out nonstate actors, only a “very few companies or groups” could have done it, and that a state actor still seemed most likely.

And he hinted his team came across some red herrings in the course of their investigation: “Those who carried this out were careful with the traces they left behind,” he said.

Privately, Swedish, German, and Danish officials argued that investigators have reasons not to share findings, which can reveal their intelligence capabilities. Allies have also grown wary after a string of Russian espionage and infiltration cases in Europe — including one within Germany’s spy agency.

Nor may it be in anyone’s interest to share: Naming a culprit could set off unintended consequences.

Claiming Russia was behind the attack would mean it had successfully sabotaged major critical infrastructure in Western Europe’s backyard, and could spark demands for a response.

Blaming Ukrainian operatives could stoke internal debate in Europe about support for their eastern neighbor.

And naming a Western nation or operatives could trigger deep mistrust when the West is struggling to maintain a united front.

“Is there any interest from the authorities to come out and say who did this? There are strategic reasons for not revealing who did it,” said Jens Wenzel Kristoffersen, a Danish naval commander and military expert at the University of Copenhagen. “As long as they don’t come out with anything substantial, then we are left in the dark on all this — as it should be.”

Reporting was contributed by Christopher F. Schuetze in Berlin, Jasmina Nielsen in Copenhagen and Christina Anderson in Stockholm.

Audio produced by Tally Abecassis .

Nord Stream sabotage one year on: What to know about the attack

Investigators from Germany, Sweden and Denmark remain tight-lipped while speculation and theories abound.

A year has passed since explosions rocked the Nord Stream pipelines , cutting off a major route for Russian gas exports to Europe and fuelling geopolitical tensions already at a fever pitch after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

However, despite official investigations in three countries, the question of who is responsible for the act of sabotage remains unanswered.

Without hard evidence, many theories have emerged pointing the finger at Ukraine, Russia or the United States, all of which have denied involvement.

Here is what we know about the Nord Stream attack:

What happened to the Nord Stream pipelines?

On September 26, 2022, several underwater blasts ruptured three of the four pipelines comprising Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, spewing vast amounts of gas into the Baltic Sea near Bornholm, Denmark.

Russian energy giant Gazprom halted flows through Nord Stream 1, the main conduit for Russian natural gas to Germany, amid disputes over the war in Ukraine a month earlier.

The newly completed Nord Stream 2 twin pipelines never opened as Berlin pulled the plug on the project days before Russian troops entered Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

The 10-billion-euro ($10.6bn) Nord Stream 2 had long been opposed by Ukraine, the US and Eastern European countries which feared it would give Russia too much influence over Germany’s energy security.

Diplomatically sensitive investigations ongoing

The blasts occurred in the economic zones of Sweden and Denmark , so both countries launched investigations into the incident. So far, they say the explosions were deliberate, but they have yet to single out who was behind the blasts.

Germany also launched an investigation with federal prosecutors searching a yacht in January that might have been used to transport the explosives. They seized objects from the vessel and found traces of explosives.

They have refused to comment on media speculation that a team of five men and one woman chartered the Andromeda yacht from Rostock port to carry out the operation.

“The identity of the perpetrators and their motives” remains the subject of ongoing investigations, Germany’s prosecution office told AFP news agency.

The fact all three countries have kept a tight lid on their investigations is unsurprising, according to analysts, given the potential diplomatic fallout of what they might uncover.

The theories: A pro-Ukrainian group, Russian naval ships, and a US plot

Investigative journalists have been carrying out their own research to solve the Nord Stream whodunnit, leading to sometimes sensational, if unconfirmed, reports.

Dutch military intelligence warned the CIA of a Ukrainian plan to blow up the pipelines three months before the attack, Dutch broadcaster NOS and Germany’s Die Zeit and ARD reported in June. The Washington Post made a similar claim.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly denied his country was behind the sabotage.

“I would never do that,” he told Germany’s Bild newspaper, adding he would “like to see proof”.

In March, The New York Times wrote that US officials had seen intelligence indicating a “pro-Ukrainian group” was responsible, without Zelenskyy’s knowledge.

German media have focused on the Andromeda, with reporters from Der Spiegel magazine and broadcaster ZDF recreating the journey they believe was made by the six-person crew.

According to their reporting, a forged passport used to hire the sailboat leads back to a Ukrainian soldier, while the charter fee was paid by a company registered in Poland with ties to a woman in Kyiv.

In June, The Wall Street Journal reported Germany was trying to match DNA samples found on the vessel “to at least one Ukrainian soldier”. The Journal also said evidence found in the investigation included data from Andromeda’s radio and navigation equipment, satellite and mobile phones, and Gmail accounts allegedly used by the perpetrators.

Danish media have reported a Russian naval vessel specialised in submarine operations, the SS-750, was photographed near the site of the blasts days before the attack.

US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported in February the US was behind the blasts and that Norway assisted . It was dismissed as “fiction” by the White House.

Was it a false flag operation?

Experts have not ruled out a “false flag” operation by Russia, with clues deliberately placed to pin the blame on Ukraine.

Andreas Umland, an analyst at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies, said he sees Russia as “the most likely” culprit.

Any suspected involvement by Kyiv in an attack on Europe’s energy infrastructure could threaten the support of allies, which would benefit Russia.

At the same time, the destroyed pipelines could help Gazprom avoid compensation claims for undelivered gas, even though the company was reluctant to keep the taps open before the blasts.

Moscow may have sought “to kill two birds with one stone”, Umland said.

The Kremlin has strongly denied responsibility.

Moscow blames the US

Russia has alleged the US was behind the attack, noting the sabotage “occurred after the repeated threats  to the Nord Stream by the leadership of the United States”.

In March, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed the argument that Kyiv was behind the explosions, instead laying blame on the US .

“Who is interested? Theoretically, the United States is interested in stopping the supply of Russian energy to the European market and supplying volumes of its own,” he told an interviewer.

“Such an explosion, so powerful and at such depth, could only be conducted by experts backed by the entire potential of a state that has relevant technologies,” said Putin.

Sweden ends Nord Stream sabotage probe, hands evidence to Germany

Sweden on Wednesday dropped its investigation into the explosions in 2022 on Nord Stream pipelines carrying Russian gas to Germany, saying it lacked jurisdiction in the case but had handed evidence it had uncovered over to German investigators.

The multibillion-dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas under the Baltic Sea were ruptured by a series of blasts in the Swedish and Danish economic zones in Sep. 2022, releasing vast amounts of methane into the air.

Russia and the West, at loggerheads over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February that year, have pointed fingers at one another. Each has denied any involvement and no one has taken responsibility.

Swedish Public Prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist told Reuters: “We have a picture of what has happened, and what that picture consists of we cannot go into more detail, but it leads to the conclusion that we do not have jurisdiction,” he said.

“It is not Sweden’s task to continue this investigation.”

Ljungqvist said the main task had been to establish whether Sweden or Swedish citizens were involved in the attack, which he said had taken place in international waters.

“The answer to that question is ‘no’ and there is nothing in this case that poses any risk to Sweden’s security now that we have seen how things stand,” he said.

Ljungqvist said the investigation had been extensive and the findings shared with German investigators, but secrecy laws prevented him from making the evidence public.

Denmark and Germany are carrying out separate investigations. A German government spokesperson said Berlin was still interested in solving the case.

Danish police said on Wednesday they expected to provide more information on their investigation “within a short time”.

In July, Germany told the U.N. Security Council it had found traces of subsea explosives on a sailing yacht that may have been used to transport the explosives and that trained divers may have attached the explosives to the pipelines.

Russia has blamed the United States, Britain, and Ukraine for the blasts which largely cut it off from the lucrative European market. Those countries have denied involvement.

Some Western officials have said Russian military vessels were in the area at the time of the blasts, but others have said there is no hard evidence to implicate Russia, which called the suggestion it was behind the attacks “absurd”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Russia would now watch what Germany would do to investigate the explosions.

“Of course, now we need to see how Germany itself reacts to this, as a country that has lost a lot in relation to this terrorist attack,” he said.

Moscow has repeatedly complained about lack of insight into the Western investigations.