New developments and disclosures regarding the act of sabotage that blew up the Nord Stream pipelines from Russia to Germany nearly two years ago, including a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) report that Ukraine was behind the attack, fuel more speculation about who could be responsible. The WSJ also reported that German authorities have issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian diving instructor believed to last be residing in Poland as part of their investigation into the matter.
“I think this will be one of those mysteries which will never be fully explained and, as a result, will continue to attract all manner of speculation and conspiracies,” Chris Weafer, CEO and General Director of Macro-Advisory, the leading independent strategic business consultancy in the Eurasia region, told NE Global on August 20. “It is unlikely that whoever was behind it will ever claim responsibility because it was an action taken without broad political support and an action which, arguably, damages the economic interests of Germany and some other EU states which used receive gas from it and who may have expected to resume gas imports in the future,” he said.
Weafer postulated that the Nord Stream sabotage was ordered by a government which wanted to permanently disrupt the EU’s economic and energy relationship with Moscow over the longer term and not just to cause a short-term problem as the gas had already stopped flowing due to a Moscow decision.
Katja Yafimava, a senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, told NE Global on August 20 the Nord Stream attacks have endangered European gas supply in two ways: directly, by making one of its major gas supply routes inoperable; indirectly, by demonstrating that any piece of European energy infrastructure can be sabotaged at will.
“An oft-made argument that Nord Stream was not transporting any gas at the time of the explosions and therefore Europe’s supply security was not affected is misleading because flows through Nord Stream could potentially re-start pending a resolution of the turbine maintenance dispute had it not been physically damaged. The attack has made such return impossible,” Yafimava argued.
On September 26, 2022, several explosions were detected along the Nord Stream 1 and the not-yet operational Nord Stream 2 pipelines, leading to gas leaks prompting Germany, Denmark, and Sweden to all open investigations into the incident.
“I think the very fact that Germany has continued its investigation even though Sweden and Denmark closed theirs and collected evidence that was deemed sufficient by the German court to grant a request to issue an arrest warrant is a positive development,” the Oxford energy expert said. “It suggests that the rule of law is respected while also signaling that an attack on national energy infrastructure will not be ignored, irrespective of whether and if any allied state actor(s) might have been involved. If such involvement were to be proven, it would be surprising if it were not to have at least some bearing on Germany’s energy and foreign policies,” Yafimava explained.
Attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines and damage to the Balticconnector offshore gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia in October 2023 by the anchor of a Chinese-flagged ship, although the Finnish and Estonian authorities still continue their investigation whether it was deliberate, have highlighted the rising threats to Europe’s energy infrastructure and submarine cable networks.
Yafimava said if the investigation into the Nord Stream explosions “were to conclude with an indictment of all those involved in masterminding and execution of the attack, it would de facto decrease the risk of any potential attacks on European infrastructure in the future.”
The WSJ report claims that Nord Stream was blown up by a small Ukrainian sabotage team in an operation that was initially approved by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and then called off, but which went ahead anyway.
Some experts doubt that Ukraine was really behind the sabotage and that it’s possible it was a “false flag” operation by Russia, with clues deliberately placed to pin the blame on Kyiv. But, according to Weafer, that’s an unlikely scenario. “I do not see it as a false-flag Moscow operation as Russia had control of the input valve and already switched off the gas exports. Blowing up the pipeline makes no sense for Russia as it limits the potential for future economic engagement with Germany and the EU when the current geopolitical backdrop improves,” Weafer argued, reminding that Russia spent a lot of money completing the Nord Stream 2 pipelines, including almost building a new pipe-laying ship after U.S. sanctions prevented the Swiss company, which had been laying the pipes, from completing it.
