Pipeline image credit: Dragan Mihajlovic / Then-VP JoeBiden in Sojevo, Kosovo, Aug. 17, 2016. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu) / Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, November 2006 (Tass)
Nord Stream 1 is Russia’s largest gas pipeline to Europe, and between Sept. 26 and 29, a series of explosions caused leaks in the Nord Stream 1 as well as a second pipeline Nord Stream 2 pipelines. The United States, European Union, NATO, and Russia all agree the damage and gas leaks point to sabotage but disagree with who did the sabotage. Conspiracy theorists–-as well as Russia– are saying the U.S. government blew up the pipeline.
Nord Stream 1 has been closed indefinitely. It normally supplies European Union states with about 35 percent of all the gas they import from Russia.
Opened in 2011, Nord Stream 1 is an undersea pipeline that stretches 745 miles under the Baltic Sea from the Russian coast near St. Petersburg to north-eastern Germany. It can send a maximum of 170m cubic metres of gas per day from Russia to Germany, according to the BBC.
What everyone does know is that hundreds of pounds of TNT were used to damage the Nord Stream pipelines, Sweden and Denmark recently told the United Nations’ Security Council. Sweden and Denmark declared that TNT was used deliberately to damage the pipelines, Business Insider reported.
“The magnitude of the explosions was measured at 2.3 and 2.1 on the Richter Scale, respectively, probably corresponding to an explosive load of several hundred kilos,” the two countries said, per Barrons. “All available information indicates that those explosions are the result of a deliberate act.”
The Russian ambassador to the United Nations on Sept. 30 told the Security Council that the U.S. has much to gain in gas trade from damage to the Nord Stream pipeline system under the Baltic Sea.
“American liquefied natural gas suppliers should be celebrating the manifold increase in LNG supplies to Europe,” Russian diplomat Vasily Alekseevich Nebenzya, the current Permanent Representative of Russia to the United Nations, said.
Earlier that same day, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the U.S. and its allies blew up the Nord Stream, Reuters reported.
“The sanctions were not enough for the Anglo-Saxons: they moved onto sabotage,” he said. The United States and other countries have imposed several rounds of sanctions against Russia since Putin sent his forces to invade Ukraine in late February.
The White House denied it was responsible for the damage.
“Let me be clear, the United States categorically denies any involvement in this incident and we reject an assertion saying the contrary,” Richard Mills, the U.S. deputy representative to the United Nations, said at the UN meeting.
Back in February, Biden said the completion of the building of Nord Stream 2 pipeline won’t move ahead if Russia invades Ukraine. Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.
President Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said during a joint news conference in early February that they are in complete agreement on sanctions against Moscow if Russia invaded Ukraine again, NPR reported.
The two countries also agreed that they would work together to stop the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline — a multibillion-dollar pipeline that runs from Russia to Germany. At the time, the pipeline was not yet operational.
Russia is one of the world’s largest producers of natural gas; Germany is one of the largest importers of that commodity.
“If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, there will no longer be a Nord Stream 2,” Biden said in February. “We will bring an end to it.”
According to journalist Michael Tracey in a tweet, “Der Spiegel says the CIA warned the German government over the summer about “a possible attack scenario on the Nord Stream pipelines” in which the attack is carried out by Ukrainian forces.”
Pipeline image credit: Dragan Mihajlovic, https://www.istockphoto.com/portfolio/DraganMihajlovic?mediatype=photography / Then-VP JoeBiden in Sojevo, Kosovo, Aug. 17, 2016. (AP Photo/Visar Kryeziu) / Russian President Vladimir Putin at a shooting gallery in Moscow, November 2006 (Tass)
