A Polish government official said news reports suggesting a link between Poland and explosions that damaged the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea last year echo Russian propaganda.
Stanislaw Zaryn, deputy to Poland's minister coordinator of special services, said on Twitter on June 10 that the "Russian apparatus of influence" consistently uses information about Ukrainian or Polish involvement in the destruction of the pipelines to create the impression that Warsaw and Kyiv were behind the incident.
Zaryn made the comment in a series of tweets that also said the Russians "create more and more events shaped according to a logically coherent sequence, but based on untrue premises or a lie." He added that Russian disinformation "continues to try to divide Poles and Ukrainians."
A Wall Street Journal report earlier on June 10 said German investigators are examining evidence suggesting a sabotage team used Poland as an operating base to damage the pipelines.
The report said investigators have fully reconstructed the two-week voyage of the Andromeda, a 15-meter white pleasure yacht suspected of being involved in the sabotage of the pipelines.
SEE ALSO: Live Briefing: Russia Invades UkraineThe Journal cited people familiar with the voyage as indicating that the sabotage crew placed deep-sea explosives on Nord Stream 1 before setting the vessel on a course toward Poland.
It added that Germany was trying to match DNA samples found on the vessel "to at least one Ukrainian soldier."
Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, each consisting of two pipes, were built by Russia's state-controlled Gazprom to pump natural gas to Germany. The destruction of the pipelines occurred about seven months after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Washington Post reported earlier this week that the United States had learned of a Ukrainian plan to attack the pipelines three months before they were damaged by the underwater explosions.
German media in March identified the possible involvement of a yacht from a Poland-based company owned by Ukrainian citizens in the attack and said investigators had searched the yacht on suspicions that "the vessel in question may have been used to transport explosive devices.”
German media said some of the people who chartered the yacht may have shown Ukrainian passports for identification and reported that an unnamed Western intelligence agency communicated to European security agencies that a Ukrainian commando group was responsible.
The Ukrainian government has repeatedly denied any involvement in the explosions. Russia has also denied it was behind the blasts.
U.S. officials called the blasts sabotage, and European authorities later said that the sophistication of the incident -- in particular the depths at which the explosives would have been placed -- pointed to a state actor with access to complex diving equipment and detonators.
Sweden and Denmark have been leading the investigation into the explosions, which occurred on September 26 inside the boundaries of their economic zone. Both countries said the incident was deliberate but have yet to determine who was responsible.
A report by a consortium of Nordic news organization May 3 said Russian naval ships were repeatedly in the vicinity of the Nord Stream pipelines prior to the blast.
SEE ALSO: Russian Naval Ships Reportedly Seen Near Site Of Nord Stream Pipeline Explosion Days PriorThe ships included a Russian naval research vessel called the Sibiryakov, as well as a tugboat, and a third Russian naval ship. The tugboat, called SB-123, reportedly arrived on September 21, five days before the explosion, and remained there for the entire evening and night before sailing back toward Russia.
That vessel had been previously identified by the German news site T-Online as one of six vessels suspected of being involved in the explosions.
The Nordic broadcasters’ report said the ships had turned off their transmitters -- GPS-like devices that many ships around the world use to broadcast their locations.
Prior to that report, Finnish and Danish media published accounts based on marine tracking data that cast suspicion on a Greek-flagged oil and chemical tanker. The ship drifted within 500 meters of the site of the explosions before sailing to Tallinn on September 14 and then on to St. Petersburg.
The Athens-based owner of the tanker confirmed to RFE/RL that the ship drifted near the site but said it had been awaiting voyage orders.