- Damage to the Nord Stream pipelines was caused by intentional acts of sabotage, Denmark said.
- “These are deliberate actions. It was not an accident,” Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said.
- The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines have been leaking natural gas into the Baltic Sea.
Recent damage to the Nord Stream pipelines, which are leaking natural gas into the Baltic Sea, was caused by “deliberate” acts of sabotage, Denmark’s leadership said on Tuesday.
“It is now the clear assessment by authorities that these are deliberate actions. It was not an accident,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said at a press conference, Reuters reported. “There is no information yet to indicate who may be behind this action.”
The Danish military captured footage of natural gas swirling at the sea’s surface after damage to the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Steam 2 — which were built to transport natural gas from Russia to Europe — caused leaks. European officials on Tuesday said they believe the damage was intentional.
—Forsvaret (@forsvaretdk) September 27, 2022
Denmark’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeppe Kofod wrote on Twitter that he has been in touch with his Swedish counterpart Ann Linde and said “these are critical hours,” adding that they “call for close international cooperation.”
Terje Aasland, Norway’s minister of petroleum and energy, said the information provided so far indicates that the damage was an act of sabotage.
Danish Armed Forces wrote in a statement that the leaks were discovered by an F-16 interceptor response unit. Nord Stream AG, the pipeline operator, said the “destruction that happened within one day at three lines of the Nord Stream pipeline system is unprecedented.”
Both Nord Stream systems have become a point of contention between Europe and Russia over Moscow’s seven-month-long war in Ukraine.
After Russia’s late-February full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow suspended gas flow through the newer Nord Stream 2, which wasn’t yet operational. More recently, it has stopped gas flow through what was previously a fully operational Nord Stream 1.
Mikhaylo Podolyak, a top advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, called the Nord Stream 1 gas leak “nothing more than a terrorist attack planned by Russia and an act of aggression towards EU.”
“[Russia] wants to destabilize economic situation in Europe and cause pre-winter panic,” he said.
