Danish authorities recovered an object that investigations found to be an empty marine smoke buoy adjacent to the leaking Nord Stream gas pipeline, the Danish Energy Agency (DEA) said on Wednesday.
“According to The Danish Defense, the rescue was carried out at a depth of 73 meters. A representative of the owner, Nord Stream 2 AG, was present during the rescue,” completed on Tuesday, the DEA said in a statement of press
“Investigations indicate that the object is an empty marine smoke buoy, which is used for visual signaling. The object does not pose any security risk”.
Damage to sections of the pipeline in Danish and Swedish waters prompted speculation of a US government plot to prevent the Kremlin from weaponizing gas supplies to Europe.
Nord Stream AG, which is 51 percent owned by Russia’s Gazprom, reported on Sept. 26 “a drop in pressure in both pipeline chains” of Nord Stream 1. It said the next day that the drop in pressure was the result of a gas leak in both gas lines. the pipe
“The positions of two alleged damages have been identified and are located northeast of Bornholm in the Swedish and Danish EEZs respectively,” he said.
The pressure stabilized “as of October 3.” But “Nord Stream AG is unable to inspect the damaged sections of the pipeline due to the lack of previously requested necessary permits,” the owner said in an Oct. 4 update.
Nord Stream AG said on October 27 that a vessel chartered by Nord Stream AG arrived at the suspected site of damage in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) to survey the affected area.
“Nord Stream AG is still waiting for the authorities’ decision on the granting of the necessary permits for the damage assessment,” he added.
On November 2, he identified the damaged section as being on line 1 of the Swedish EEZ, saying: “according to the preliminary results of the inspection of the damage site, man-made craters with a depth of 3 to 5 meters were found on the bottom of the sea at a distance of approximately 248 m from each other”.
“The section of the pipe between the craters is destroyed, the radius of dispersion of pipe fragments is at least 250 m.”
Nord Stream AG in its latest update said that on November 11 the Danish Geodata Agency granted it a permit to carry out drilling in the affected area.
The Swedish Security Service reported a week later that its investigation showed that the damaged parties had suffered “serious sabotage”.
“In the on-site crime scene investigations in the Baltic Sea, extensive damage to gas pipelines resulting from the detonations has been thoroughly documented. Several seizures have been made, including foreign articles,” the agency said government in a press release.
“Explosive residues have been identified in several foreign objects seized and analyzed.”
He did not identify the items, but said “advanced analysis” was still ongoing.
US Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh wrote on February 8 that US Navy divers had reportedly “planted the remote-detonated explosives that, three months later, they destroyed three of the four Nord Stream gas pipelines.” He cited an unnamed “source with direct knowledge of operational planning” in the blog post.
The operation, Hersh said, took place “under the cover of a highly publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22” with the help of the Norwegian Navy.
Hersh argued that as Russian troops massed on the Ukrainian border and war loomed, “President Joseph Biden saw the pipelines as a vehicle for Vladimir Putin to use natural gas for his political and territorial ambitions “.
He said White House spokeswoman Adrienne Watson had responded by email to a request for comment: “this is a complete and utter false fiction.”
“Tammy Thorp, a spokeswoman for the Central Intelligence Agency, similarly wrote: ‘This claim is completely and utterly false,'” Hersh said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin called the incidents a “terrorist attack” by state actors.
“Who benefits from the supply of Russian gas to Europe only through Ukraine? This is who blew it up,” Putin said at a news conference, according to a Kremlin transcript on Dec. 22.
“No one is investigating. Only once did we have the opportunity to inspect the sites of the explosions.”
Citing information “reviewed by US officials,” a March 7 New York Times article said a pro-Ukrainian group carried out “the attack.” US officials said they had no evidence that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky or his top security officials were involved in the operation, according to the article. The report said officials declined to say more about the intelligence or how it was obtained.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky, tweeted the same day that Ukraine had “nothing to do with the Baltic Sea accident” and had no information about pro-Kryiv “sabotage groups”.
Leonid Slutsky, head of the lower house of the Russian parliament, called the article “another red herring, aimed at distracting the public from the real authors by pointing to an abstract rebel group.”
“But who would have believed that an operation of this scope, which is essentially military in nature, can be carried out by a previously unknown sabotage group?” Russian state news agency TASS said in a Telegram post, which did not is more accessible.
The United Nations Security Council on Monday rejected Russia’s request for an investigation into the incidents. Brasilia, Beijing and Moscow have voted in favor, but with 12 abstentions there has been a lack of sufficient votes.
“The resolution, if passed, would have asked the Secretary-General to establish an international and independent commission of inquiry to conduct a comprehensive, transparent and impartial international investigation into all aspects of the act of sabotage on the Nord Stream gas pipelines 1 and 2. including the identification of their authors, sponsors, organizers and accomplices,” the UN said in a press release.
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Photo Credit – iStock.com/Dragan Mihajlovic
