It has been more than five months since the acts of sabotage against the Russian Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, the first of which carried gas to Europe via Germany and, despite multiple ongoing investigations, it is still unknown who is behind it the explosions that caused two leaks in each of them and put the Baltic countries on high alert. Among the main suspects that have been considered are Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States or, in recent days, Ukraine. All, however, deny any involvement.
The two gas pipelines, made up of two pipes each, run for 1,230 kilometers connecting the Russian Bay of Narva with the German Baltic coast under the Baltic waters, and were designed to be able to transport up to 110,000 million cubic meters of Russian natural gas per year in the European market. The Nord Stream 2 never got to work. Nord Stream 1 was also not carrying gas at the time of the sabotage (between September 26 and 27, 2022), since Putin had been reducing its contribution as a form of pressure on Europe and in response to Western sanctions. The majority owner of the pipeline is the Russian state company Gazprom. Russia began supplying gas through Nord Stream 1 in 2011.
The Nord Stream 2 was completed at the end of 2021, but it never obtained the final authorization from Germany to put it into operation. In addition, it was opposed by the European Union, the US and Eastern countries, considering that it would increase Germany’s dependence on Russian gas and give Moscow the power to blackmail Berlin.
Although the gas pipelines were not operational on September 26, at two in the morning, they were full of natural gas. At that time, an explosion originating from Nord Stream 2 was detected, from which natural gas began to escape to the surface southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm. Hours later the same thing happened with Nord Stream 1.
The leaks, all located in international waters and within the economic interest zones of Denmark and Sweden, occurred one day after the opening of the alternative Baltic Pide pipeline, which carries gas from Norway to Poland via Denmark. The three main leaks were terminated at the beginning of October, when stable pressure was reached in the pipes, but the smallest one remained active for a few more days. From the beginning it was concluded that it had been a deliberate act.
Since then, speculation about who was responsible for the sabotage has grown. The candidates are diverse, but none of those who accuse have provided evidence. Poland and Ukraine immediately accused Russia of planting the explosives. Moscow, in turn, denied the allegation and took direct aim at the UK, which has also denied any involvement.
Last month, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an article the conclusion of which pointed to the United States as the perpetrator of the operation. According to Hersh, who rests that theory on a single anonymous source, the sabotage would have been a direct decision of US President Joe Biden. Hersh justified his hypothesis in the threat made by the US president just before the Russian invasion in which he claimed that he would end Nord Stream 2 if his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, invaded Ukraine. The claims were rejected by US officials.
The US media did not echo Hersh’s theories, considering them conspiracy and have even questioned the professionalism of the journalist.
This week White House officials revealed to the New York Times that US intelligence suggested a pro-Ukrainian group was behind the explosions. Added to this information are the details supplied by the German chain ARD and the newspaper Die Zeit, according to which the attack was perpetrated by five men and a woman who rented a yacht through a company based in Poland. For this they would have used false passports. They set sail from the German port of Rostock.
Ukraine has again denied having anything to do with the matter, while Russia has stressed that the recent publications by Western media is a coordinated strategy to divert attention from the course of the war in Ukraine.