In Swedish waters
Another leak discovered at Nord Stream pipelines
09/29/2022, 08:19 am
At the beginning of the week there was a pressure drop on the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea. After initially three leaks, the Swedish Coast Guard has now discovered a fourth leak. Security expert Johannes Peters assumes that Russia sabotaged the tubes.
Sweden’s coast guard says it has discovered a fourth gas leak on the damaged Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea. The hole was also found this week, reported the newspaper “Svenska Dagbladet”. “There are two leaks on Swedish territory and two on Danish territory,” said a spokesman for the Swedish Coast Guard. The two leaks on Swedish territory are “close to each other”. At the beginning of the week, leaks were found on the Russian Nord Stream pipelines at one point in the Swedish economic zone and at two in the Danish economic zone within a short period of time.
The exact reason is unclear. Western security experts assume sabotage. The analyst Johannes Peters suspects Russia behind it. “Obviously, it seems a bit absurd to destroy your own pipelines,” said the expert from the Institute for Security Policy at the University of Kiel on ARD. But there are good reasons for that.
One reason is certainly to send a “strong signal” to Europe, especially to Germany and Poland, that the same thing could be done with pipelines that are much more important for our security of supply, such as the pipelines from Norway: “So be nice not so sure that you are well set up for the winter and that you are able to offset our gas.”
Another possible reason for a possible Russian act of sabotage is that in winter “the Nord Stream 2 pipe, which is still intact, can be used to increase pressure on Germany, for example if domestic political pressure on the government should increase because gas prices are high because we might not have enough gas for the winter after all.” Then Russia could offer to deliver gas through the intact pipeline after all. To do this, however, Germany would have to “pull out of the Western sanctions regime.”
The equally widespread thesis that the United States could have caused the leaks “to prevent Europe from finding its way back to the Russians in a cold winter,” Peters believes is almost impossible.
Already on Tuesday, several countries brought an attack on the European gas infrastructure into play as the cause of the unprecedented damage. The EU and NATO assume sabotage. On Wednesday, the Kremlin dismissed speculation that Russia was involved in the damage to the pipelines as “stupid and absurd”.