STOCKHOLM/COPENHAGEN (Reuters) – Russia’s Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea have leaked, Sweden and Denmark reported on Tuesday, raising concerns about possible sabotage.
Boilings were visible on the surface of the sea, including one with a diameter of about 1,000 meters, according to a press release from the Danish army.
Nord Stream 1 is affected by two leaks, according to the Swedish Maritime Authority, one in the Swedish exclusive economic zone, the other in the Danish economic zone, northeast of the island of Bornholm. Denmark, for its part, discovered on Monday a leak on Nord Stream 2, which runs parallel to 1.
The two infrastructures, at the heart of the energy conflict between Europe and Russia, are out of service due to the conflict in Ukraine but contain gas.
Moscow spoke of sabotage compromising the energy security of the European continent.
“This is very worrying news. We are talking about damage of a still unknown nature on the gas pipeline in the economic zone of Denmark,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mikhaïlo Podoliak, spoke of a Russian attack to destabilize Europe, without giving any proof of his claim.
“The large-scale gas leak from Nord Stream 1 is nothing more than a planned terrorist attack by Russia and an act of aggression against the European Union,” he wrote on Twitter.
For Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, there is no doubt that this is “an act of sabotage”.
“We don’t know all the details of what happened, but we clearly see that it was an act of sabotage linked to the escalation in Ukraine,” he said on the sidelines of the inauguration of a gas pipeline between Norway and Poland.
The leaks are significant and could take a week to fix, said Danish Energy Agency director Kristoffer Bottzauw.
The risk is that ships entering the area will lose power and buoyancy, he noted.
Moreover, “the surface of the sea is covered with methane, which increases the risk of explosion,” he said.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said it was “hard to imagine a coincidence”.
The operator Nord Stream reported “unprecedented” damage.
“We have indications that the damage is intentional,” said a European security source.
The Russian operator Gazprom has reduced the volumes of gas delivered by Nord Stream 1 until its complete closure at the end of August, in response to Western sanctions.
Gazprom declined to comment on the leaks on Tuesday.
(Reuters report, written by Matthias Williams; French version Augustin Turpin and Sophie Louet, edited by Nicolas Delame)