Germany to Deploy Police Unit to Baltic Port After Nord Stream Attacks

The specialists handle counter-terrorism operations and have trained divers within their ranks, Der Spiegel reports

Germany’s Interior Ministry will permanently station a police tactical unit at the Baltic Sea port of Neustadt to provide a rapid response to any potential attacks on “critical infrastructure,” according to a report by Der Spiegel weekly on Friday.

The move was reportedly motivated by the September 2022 Nord Stream pipeline explosions, which highlighted a “clear” threat of “acts of sabotage,” the media outlet said, citing security sources.

GSG 9, the counterterrorism division of Germany’s Federal Police, includes a maritime deployment unit, GSG 9/2, which has specially trained divers and is equipped with speedboats, Der Spiegel reported. They can also operate from the country’s Federal Police vessels.

While German media outlets have reported on the unit’s redeployment, the ministry has declined to openly confirm the information, stating that it cannot provide “specific information” on the deployment locations of GSG 9 for “tactical reasons.”

“Given the current threats… from acts of sabotage against critical infrastructure or terrorist [attacks], a rapid crisis response capability is essential,” a ministerial spokesman told journalists.

A regional lawmaker in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein, where Neustadt is located, told the media that the decision was made on Wednesday. “In Neustadt, the Federal Police has its own port… hosting four 86m-long emergency vessels,” which can be used by GSG 9 if needed, MP Bettina Hagedorn said.

The Nord Stream gas pipelines – the crucial energy infrastructure built to deliver Russian gas to Germany and the rest of Europe – were ruptured by underwater blasts in September 2022. Berlin initiated an investigation into the incident but has not yet publicly disclosed any findings. Moscow has repeatedly asserted that German authorities have refused to share any information with Russia.

Western media outlets have repeatedly reported that a privately funded group of Ukrainian divers was supposedly responsible for the attack. Some reports have also suggested that the group allegedly acted on orders from General Valery Zaluzhny, who was later dismissed and became Kiev’s ambassador to the UK.

Russia has consistently maintained that the US could have been involved in the incident. In September, the Russian foreign intelligence, the SVR, alleged that Washington and London orchestrated the 2022 sabotage as an act of economic warfare against their EU allies and are now forcing Berlin to conceal the truth.

In February 2023, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report claiming that Washington had ordered the Nord Stream pipelines to be destroyed. The US denied its involvement at the time, dismissing the report as “utterly false.” 

German lawmaker Sahra Wagenknecht has also questioned the government’s silence on the issue and has called for the establishment of an independent parliamentary investigative committee to examine it.