Leaks in pipelines
Swedish prosecutor confirms Nord Stream explosions caused by sabotage
Here’s what the Nord Stream explosion looked like on the water’s surface as the gas escaped from the leaks
© Swedish Coast Guard / AFP
The Nord Stream pipelines were sabotaged. This has now been confirmed by the Swedish public prosecutor. The proof: traces of explosives on several foreign bodies discovered.
The leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines can be traced back to serious sabotage. The Swedish public prosecutor’s office came to this conclusion after investigating the explosion sites in the Baltic Sea. Analyzes showed traces of explosives on several foreign objects that were discovered, said the prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist, who was entrusted with the preliminary investigations, on Friday. The analysis work would continue in order to be able to draw safer conclusions about the incident.
In September, a total of four explosions in the economic zones of Sweden and Denmark in the Baltic Sea caused several leaks in the pipelines that had been built to transport Russian gas to Germany. The pipelines were not operating at the time of the explosions but contained gas.
Western governments as well as Russia stated even then that they assumed sabotage to be the cause of the leaks. At the beginning of November, Moscow accused Great Britain of having controlled and coordinated the explosions in the gas pipelines. There is no evidence for this.