In this article, I will touch upon the history of the Nord Stream pipeline and some key points that shaped the mainstream opinion about it today. After the sabotage of the NS1 and NS2 pipeline on the 26th of September 2022, many studies and investigations have been conducted with “inconclusive” endings. Whether NATO countries, Russia, or Ukraine were active in the sabotage remains a mystery. Is this truly the case though?
On September 26, 2022, a series of underwater explosions and subsequent gas leaks occurred on the Nord Stream 1 (NS1) and Nord Stream 2 (NS2) natural gas pipelines, two of the 23 pipelines connecting Europe and Russia. These pipelines, constructed to transport natural gas from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea, are predominantly owned by Gazprom, a Russian-based gas company. These events have created a record number of allegations, as per usual the west is pointing to Russia, and Russia is pointing to the west. But who actually benefits from not having this pipeline operating? Who benefits from the sabotage and the uproar it caused?
Ten days before the 2005 German election, as the race between Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and his challenger Angela Merkel was reaching its peak, Schröder decided to meet with a close friend: Russian President Vladimir Putin.
An idea that had first emerged in the mid-1990s was finally brought to fruition on September 8, 2005, with a joint declaration of intent signed by the German and Russian heads of government. A new natural gas pipeline would run directly from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea, bypassing the transit countries that had previously complicated matters for Russia. This would free Russia from the transport fees charged by Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and the Baltic nations for pipelines crossing their territories and reduce the leverage these countries had over Russia.
Schröder lost the election, and shortly after his chancellorship ended, he joined the board of directors of the pipeline's new operating company, which would soon be renamed Nord Stream. As Anna Kuchenbecker, senior director and strategic partnership specialist at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), noted, "This is, so to speak, a baby of the special friendship between Gerhard Schröder and Vladimir Putin."
In 2006, the companies OAO Gazprom (now PJSC Gazprom), E.ON Ruhrgas AG (now E.ON SE), and BASF SE/Wintershall Holding GmbH (now Wintershall Dea AG) established an independent project company to facilitate the planning and implementation of an additional, reliable energy supply from Russia's vast gas fields to European consumers.
This project was stamped as controversial from the start, the main issue for the Germans was the security concerns this project could create for the Baltic states and mainly Ukraine.
In the early 2000s, German politicians embraced a different, more liberal perspective: that fostering greater economic interdependence between Russia and Western Europe would lead to lasting peace. They believed that as trade flourished, democracy would naturally follow.
According to the west, they felt this theory was disproven in the second decade of the 21st century. In 2012, Putin returned to the Russian presidency after a term with Dmitry Medvedev. Then, in 2014, Russia's annexation of Crimea triggered a conflict in eastern Ukraine. The subsequent suppression of opposition and human rights activists in Russia highlighted a starkly different reality. This shift in events prompted a change in Western attitudes, most notably within the US Congress.
Ukraine was at a strategic disadvantage of this project, a country that after the fall of the Soviet Union had very unstable relations with Russia due to corruption, foreign interests, and political unrest that followed from the western interfering in their expansion of “strategic defence”.
The fear of Ukraine losing the Brotherhood pipeline would also end up in a loss of billions of dollars, an amount Ukraine could not afford to lose since the economy never fully recovered from their instability.
Germany was headed for problems, after the stricter conditions on nuclear energy due to the 2011 disaster in Fukushima, there was a need for a second Nord Stream pipeline (NS2). Angela Merkel has chosen a pragmatic route and decided that by 2015 this pipeline should be built. Merkel found a friend in the White House, the then-president Obama, so the response to the pipeline was rather mild. After Donald Trump got into office, that changed drastically. Threatening letters were sent by the US ambassador in 2019, to any company that had some part in the build of this pipeline.
Since 2015, Merkel's position remained consistent: while NS2 might have geopolitical implications, it was fundamentally an economic project. Some called this compartmentalization, the dividing of politics and trade.
In 2021, the European Union imported about 45% of its natural gas from Russia. The United States has consistently opposed the Nord Stream pipelines. In 2019, former President Donald Trump claimed that NS2 could render Europe vulnerable to Russian control and imposed sanctions on companies involved in its construction. By December 2020, President-elect Joe Biden expressed strong opposition to the pipeline due to the potential for increased Russian leverage. Nevertheless, in 2021, the Biden administration decided to lift the sanctions, arguing that maintaining strong relations with Germany and other European allies was in the national interest, despite their firm opposition to Nord Stream 2. The construction of the second pipeline was completed in September 2021, yet never saw action.
A lot has happened since then, and we are currently several years into a conflict in Ukraine with the support of the NATO countries in both money and arms against Russia making this one of the biggest proxy wars of our times.
It has been quite some time since the NS1 and NS2 have been sabotaged and yet there has not been a single arrest or reprimand for whoever did this.
Lets gather a rough timeline on what happend on 26 September 2022
On September 26, the Geological Survey of Denmark detected two spikes on Bornholm: a 2.3 magnitude P wave at 02:03 (CEST) and a 2.1 at 19:03. Similar data from seismometers in Stevns, Germany, Sweden, Finland, and Norway indicated underwater explosions as not natural events.
Danish F16 pilot reports the gas leak and informs the danish government about this event resulting in a closure of shipping due to danger for the boats in the Danish economic zone.
Hours after Nord Stream's German office reported a pressure loss in NS 1, Swedish authorities discovered two gas leaks on the pipeline. Both parallel lines of Nord Stream 1 were ruptured, with the leaks about 6 kilometers apart—one in the Swedish economic zone and the other in the Danish economic zone.
September 27, the Danish Defence posted a video showing the largest gas leak causing water surface turbulence about 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) in diameter.
The Swedish government has conducted an investigation into the gas leak and they have reported the residue of explosive materials, this investigation prompted the United states and Germany to point the finger to Russia, in response these allegations where denied by Russia and the finger was once again pointed to the west.
Now what really went down and who is to blame for it?
In June 2022, three months before the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline, the CIA warned Ukraine not to blow up the pipeline.
The warning came after the Dutch military intelligence service (MIVD) received an alarming report from a source in the Ukrainian military high command about plans for an imminent attack.
The sabotage did not occur in June, September, the pipeline was destroyed in a manner nearly identical to the scenario MIVD had revealed three months earlier.
The attack caused significant global uproar and remains shrouded in questions. Initially, many suspected Russia's involvement. However, there was growing evidence suggesting Ukraine's involvement, a claim strongly denied by President Zelensky.
The plan intercepted by the MIVD indicated that General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the highest-ranking military official in Ukraine, would lead the operation. It involved a small team of divers who would carry out the sabotage from a sailboat.
Multiple news organizations have looked into this matter including The Washington Post, who obtained classified Pentagon documents stating the involvement of the MIVD in the early warnings. All due to the wonders of the Discord leaks.
So to get things straight: explosive residue was found, the plan was discovered beforehand, and multiple governments knew about this, the names of the people involved were found in both corresponding letters between the US and Europe and yet…. No one knows who did it?
No investigation gave any conclusions and we are heading towards the 2nd-year mark of no results. The Swedish government announced it will not be continuing their investigation, multiple politicians are blaming Russia even though all they have to offer is speculation and “feelings” and no one is punished for their crimes.
Russia tried to join Swedish and Danish maritime experts at the leak sites. Foreign Policy noted that since the pipelines are owned by the Russian state and the sabotage isn't classified as a military attack, Russian involvement could complicate the investigations. Moscow demanded to participate in the investigations