The German Interior Ministry has deployed a tactical police unit on duty at the Baltic Sea port of Neustadt to ensure a quick response to any potential attack on "rying infrastructure" - German weekly Der Spiegel reported on October 11.
The move is believed to be due to the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosion in September 2022, which showed a "clear" risk of "sabotage" - Der Spiegel quoted security sources as saying.
GSG 9, the German Federal Police's anti-terrorism unit, has a unit deployed at sea, GSG 9/2, with special-trained divers and equipped with high-speed ships. They can also operate from German Federal Police vessels.
According to other German media, the German Interior Ministry did not publicly confirm Der Spiegel's information about the unit's redeployment, saying it could not provide information about the GSG 9 deployment location for "tactical reasons".
"In view of the current threats... through sabotage of critical infrastructure or terrorist attacks, the ability to respond quickly to crises is very important," a German Foreign Ministry spokesperson told reporters.
A regional lawmaker in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein told media that the decision was made on October 9. "In the city of Neustadt, the Federal Police have a separate port... where four 86-meter rescue ships are anchored," which could be used by GSG 9 if necessary, said lawmaker Bettina Hagedorn.
The Nord Stream gas pipeline - a key energy infrastructure built to transport Russian gas to Germany and the rest of Europe - ruptured by underwater explosions in September 2022.
Berlin is investigating the incident but has so far not made any of its findings public. Moscow has repeatedly stated that German authorities refuse to share any information with Russia.
Western media have repeatedly reported that a group of Ukrainian divers were believed to be behind the attack. Some newspapers also reported that the group was accused of acting under the orders of the former Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, General Valery Zaluzhny, who was later dismissed and became the Ukrainian Ambassador to the UK.
Russia has repeatedly stated that the US may have had a hand in the incident. In September, Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, SVR, accused the US and UK of being the masterminds of the Nord Stream sabotage in 2022.
"The US administration believes that carrying out such sabotage acts is reasonable to divide Europe and above all to divide Germany from Russia," SVR Director Sergey Naryshkin said, referring to Washington's "uncertainty" about whether it can persuade Berlin and other European Union (EU) countries to abandon their "extremely profitable" economic ties with Moscow.
In February 2023, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an article saying that Washington had ordered the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline. The US denied involvement, calling the article "completely untrue".
German lawmaker Sahra Wagenknecht also questioned the Berlin government's silence on the Nord Stream sabotage and called for the establishment of an independent parliamentary investigation committee to consider the issue.
