After months of investigations, the mystery remains unsolved. And for good reason, the investigations carried out by Sweden and Denmark, which were closed, ultimately did not make it possible to lift the veil on the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines. Explosions which occurred off the coast of the Danish island of Bornholm and the coasts of southern Sweden on September 26, 2022 and which caused significant gas leaks.
Indeed, the Danish public prosecutor’s office declared on Monday February 26 that it did not have any elements justifying the initiation of proceedings. Despite “authorities concluding that the sabotage of the gas pipelines was intentional […] they believe that there is not the necessary basis to continue a criminal investigation in Denmark”, wrote the Danish police in a press release. A decision described as “absurd” by the Kremlin. “On the one hand, we recognizes that there was a premeditated act of sabotage, but on the other hand, there is no progress,” criticized spokesperson Dmitri Peskov.
Conclusions which come less than a month after the closure of the Swedish investigation. After sifting through the scene, the Swedish prosecutor’s office was clear at the beginning of February: “There is no indication that Sweden or Swedish citizens were involved in this attack which took place in international waters.” Reason why “it is not within the jurisdiction of Swedish jurisdiction”, underlined Swedish prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist in a press release, specifying that he had shared the elements of his file with the German judicial authorities.
Conclusions which echo the press release issued by the Swedish intelligence services. SÄPO assured that the sabotage did not target Sweden, and thus did not threaten the country’s security.
An investigation still open
However, if Denmark has followed in Sweden’s footsteps by deciding to close its investigation, the Danish intelligence services (PET) assure that they will continue “to monitor the evolution of the threat, in collaboration with the other authorities competent authorities” and will “continuously implement measures deemed necessary to protect Denmark’s critical infrastructure”.
Especially since a third investigation is still underway in Germany. Faced with the geopolitical scale of the sabotage, Berlin also deemed it necessary to open an investigation following the explosions. Investigations described as “complex and in-depth”, carried out in collaboration with Sweden, the results of which have not yet been communicated by the German authorities.
Three countries in the sights of investigators
But from the opening of the three investigations, the trail of an act sponsored by a State was favored. The “main hypothesis is that a State is behind” this operation, Swedish prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist confirmed last April, affirming that the perpetrators knew “very well that they would leave traces”.
Three suspect countries have in particular been the subject of in-depth investigations: Ukraine, Russia, and the United States, which completely deny any involvement in the sabotage of gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea. In a joint investigation published last November, the American daily Washington Post and the German magazine Der Spiegel unanimously affirmed that a Ukrainian special forces officer would have played a key role in the sabotage, as a “coordinator” of the action.
However, this is not the first time that investigations have demonstrated the involvement of Ukrainian networks in this affair. At the beginning of March, the New York Times had claimed, on the basis of information consulted by American intelligence, that a “pro-Ukrainian group” would be behind the sabotage, but without the involvement of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
While demanding proof of the alleged facts, Volodymyr Zelensky insists that his country is not at the origin of this attack. “I would never do that” he declared a few months earlier to the German tabloid Bild. Especially since this information clashes with the revelations, six months earlier, in the Danish daily Information. The journalists had in fact affirmed, with supporting photographs, that a Russian Navy ship specializing in underwater operations was present near the scene of the sabotage shortly before the explosions, thus suggesting that Russia was behind the ‘operation. However, for the moment, no hypothesis can be excluded.