Germany’s BKA federal police has said that it was working
under the assumption that the explosions in the Nord Stream pipelines last week
were “a targeted act of sabotage”. It said it was probable that state actors
were involved.
Weekly German-language publication Spiegel cited a
letter to industry representatives from BKA, in which the police force said
that it did not yet have any findings about who was behind the sabotage but
“against the background of the high complexity of the execution of the act and
corresponding preparation, the action of state actors seems probable”.
Three out of four pipelines in the Nord Stream network ruptured
early last week, with one pipe suffering two ruptures, apparently as a result
of explosions near Swedish and Danish waters.
The BKA warned of the danger of further acts of sabotage
against critical infrastructure. These could be directed against gas and power
lines, as well as offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals or wind
turbines, among others, said the letter, which has not been made public.
Meanwhile earlier this week Sweden’s Prosecution
Authority ordered that a cordon area around the Nord Stream pipeline leaks
“to block off the area in order to do a crime scene investigation.”
While gas releases from the damaged pipelines have
largely tapered off, one of the breaches in the Nord Stream 2 line has begun to
release more gas, for reasons that as yet are not entirely clear. That leak is
still creating a bubble pool of about 30 metres in diameter at the surface, the
Swedish Coast Guard said.
The end of the leakage at the other breaches will allow
dive support vessels to approach and deploy inspection assets. Two of the leaks
are located in the Swedish EEZ and fall under Sweden’s jurisdiction.
Most of the details of the government inquiry are being
kept under wraps. Public prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said that “I
understand the considerable public interest, but we are in the early stages of
a preliminary investigation and I can therefore not comment on details about
which investigatory measures we are taking”.
The Swedish Coast Guard has implemented a 5nm exclusion
zone around the pipeline area, which mandates a full ban on “driving
ships, anchoring, diving, fishing, driving underwater vehicles or carrying out
geophysical mapping.”
The dive vessel dispatched to the scene was reported to
be the HSwMS Belos, with unnamed escorts.
The cause of the four ruptures was believed to be a
series of explosions that had a force representing between 100kg and 500kg of
TNT, based on seismic records analyzed by academic researchers in Sweden and
intelligence estimates leaked by the German government.
Other sources of pipeline gas for Europe – from Norway,
North Africa and Azerbaijan – were all flowing normally.
