Lab Analysis Does Not Detect Explosives Used in Nord Stream Sabotage. Did Someone Clean Up the Crime Scene?
Sediments collected at a blast site don't contain explosive traces, according to a lab report. Was evidence in the attack on the pipelines that carried natural gas from Russia to Europe removed?
*This article originally appeared in Diario16. It can be read in Spanish here.
Video above by Agnes Andersson
I may be the only reporter to visit all four blast sites of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the exclusive economic zones of Sweden and Denmark. Through my expedition to the blast sites with Erik Andersson; his daughter, Agnes; the captain of our boat and his first mate; we obtained sonar images, underwater drone images and videos that had never been seen by the public.
In previous reporting, I have revealed the amount of explosives used in the attack (on June 19), the type of charges used and the placement thereof, as well as spoken before the United Nations Security Council about the sabotage. That amount of explosives at each blast site – 10 to 50 kilograms – used to damage the pipelines was vastly lower than what had been previously estimated by analysts cited in outside reporting. It was the first time the accurate amount of explosives had been made public.
On our expedition, we collected sediments from the Baltic seafloor at a depth of 80 meters, and within one to five meters of the blast site of Nord Stream 2 Line A in the Swedish exclusive economic zone. A colleague and I then took the samples to a laboratory in Germany to have them analyzed for explosive traces.
According to the testing company's General Terms and Conditions for Inspection and Analytical Services, lab results, “including excerpts thereof,” can be published, reproduced or shared with third parties only “with prior written consent of the Company.”
At the time of writing, I have not been granted such permission, but I can report that the company in question is one of the world's leaders in testing, inspections and certifications. Additionally, both the analysis I requested and the laboratory where the samples were analyzed hold the International Organization for Standardization 17025 accreditation.
While I cannot legally publish the lab results, I can summarize and paraphrase their findings.
Video above by Agnes Andersson
OUR BALTIC EXPEDITION
Our expedition at the end of May took us to all four blast sites.
Eight months earlier, on September 26, the Nord Stream pipelines that carried natural gas from Russia to Europe were damaged by explosions in an attack that Swedish investigators called an act of “gross sabotage.”
The pipelines cost more than $23 billion to build, and their owners, operators and stakeholders are from several countries. The attack on them is likely the most severe act of eco-terrorism and the largest instance of industrial sabotage in history.
The first explosion occurred at three minutes past midnight UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) on Line A of North Stream 2 in the Danish exclusive economic zone. That first explosion took place 78 kilometers away from where explosions would occur 17 hours later on both Lines A and B of North Stream 1 and on the same Line A of Nord Stream 2 in the Swedish exclusive economic zone.
Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 each have dual lines. The explosions ruptured three of them. Only Line B of Nord Stream 2 remains intact.
On May 24, our small ship, the Baltic Explorer, reached the exclusive economic zone of Sweden, 31 nautical miles from the coast of Denmark. It was there that we reached the blast site at Nord Stream 2 Line A in the exclusive economic zone of Sweden (NS2SA).
We chose this area to collect the sediment samples because, as our expedition's footage indicates, this is the only place, of either Nord Stream 1 or 2, from where most of the gas had already escaped due to the prior explosions rupturing the lines. As a result, the “depressurized” NS2SA may be the only one of the four blast sites where the violent and rapid release of pressure didn't disperse the explosives traces too far from where the bombs were placed.
For good measure, we sent down the sediment-retrieval device twice. Then, once at the lab, my colleague and I mixed together all the collected sediments from each tube to prepare them for analysis.
Jeffrey Brodsky at the laboratory preparing the samples for analysis.
In March, German investigators revealed to select media that they were zeroing in on a six-person team of pro-Ukrainians who allegedly rented a pleasure yacht called Andromeda to attack the Nord Stream pipelines. Then, in late May, Der Spiegel reported that traces of HMX explosive material were found on Andromeda.
In addition to chemical traces of HMX, it seems logical that traces of RDX and maybe PETN will be found on Andromeda.
“In the production of making RDX explosives, a by-product is some HMX,” said Mike Vining, a retired U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician and an elite Special Forces Operator. “RDX has a certain percentage of HMX, so it is not surprising that you see RDX along with some HMX,” continued Vining. “RDX, HMX and PETN are not used solely by themselves; [they are] mostly used as a blend.”
Chuck O'Connor, a former U.S. Navy SEAL and master-demolition technician, agreed with Vining. “The base explosives used by all militaries for demolitions are primarily PETN and RDX,” O'Connor said. “These base explosives are not used in their pure crystallized form.”
We therefore ordered a laboratory analysis that would detect HMX, RDX and PETN, as well over another 40 chemical substances, including those found in TNT, DNT and Semtex, among others.
The requested analysis was called “Nitroaromatic compounds/explosives (HPLC).” Nitroaromatic compounds are, in simple terms, industrial chemicals that are often commercially produced for use as explosives.
HPLC stands for high-performance liquid chromatography. HPLC effectively separates each component in a mixture to identify and quantify them. Our test also employed ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy. UV-Vis spectroscopy is basically used to measure how much a chemical substance absorbs light. This measured absorption of light can, in turn, “determine the amount (or concentration) of a known chemical substance.”
Tubes containing sediments collected at Nord Stream 2 Line A in the Swedish exclusive economic zone.
WHY DON'T THE LAB RESULTS SHOW ANY TRACES OF EXPLOSIVES?
There may be a number of reasons our analyzed samples didn't show any traces of explosives.
An easy answer may be that simply too much time had passed. We collected the sediment samples almost eight months after the bombs had been detonated, and there are of course currents in the Baltic Sea that could have dispersed the explosive traces far from the blast sites.
Additionally, there are many types of analyses. Therefore, perhaps other kinds of analytical lab tests would yield different results.
Another explanation may be that the testing company never had any intention of detecting explosive traces for me in the first place. Perhaps my name was googled and they saw I had previously written about the Nord Stream sabotage – I don't know. But there were some suspicious circumstances.
For one, I was told by a company representative that there had been ample precedent for granting customers like myself permission to publish their lab results in journals, press releases and other media.
Second, when my colleague and I brought in the sediment samples on June 16, we were informed that it would take five to 15 business days to receive the results. At the end of June, I sent an email to the testing company to inquire about the status of the results. Despite having filled out all the necessary paperwork during our visit to the company's office, and even having a follow-up conversation with a customer service representative early the following week, the sediment samples had not yet been sent to the lab for analysis. This was a shock, as on the same day I spoke with the customer service representative, I also filled out an online form and provided additional information as requested. At that time, I was assured that no further action was needed from my end, and the samples would be promptly sent to the lab for the requested analysis, either on that day or the following one.
But this never happened. Instead, when I emailed the company at the end of June, I was informed that they had no record of me or the samples my colleague and I had turned in. After exchanging at least six frustrating emails with the customer service department – emails in which their responses were at once vague and unhelpful – I was then informed that my samples were still in their office's refrigerator!
This was both suspicious and disappointing. For a second time, I was then asked to provide much of the same information I had already given in the middle of June. Finally, on July 6, the samples were sent to the lab. Last week, I spoke to the same customer service representative and was told that the samples had not been previously sent to the lab by accident.
WHAT IS SWEDEN HIDING?
There may be a further explanation for the lab resultings yielding no explosive traces: that inculpatory evidence had been removed from the crime scene. It is known that Swedish investigators have removed material from the crime scene on at least two occasions. (I contacted the Swedish investigators several times for their comment on this report and my previous Nord Stream reporting, but they have refused to offer any comment.)
Trond Larsen, a submersible drone operator whose images of one of the pipelines were commissioned by Expressen, a Swedish newspaper, and later by the BBC, told me: “When Expressen released those pictures, media attention picked up again. I don't know why, but the Swedes closed off the area for some days and did some more investigations after that point. But it was just a few short days after us.”
Larsen went to one blast site twice – that of Nord Stream 1 Line A in the Swedish exclusive economic zone – last October. “After us, the Swedes went back and did some more investigation, unknown to me what they did,” he said. “In the meantime, the BBC contacted me. I think it [the BBC trip] was 10 days before we went down there [the first time with Expressen]. The Swedes had cleared off the area.”
“The day before me and the BBC came down there, there were actually, I think, three Swedish warships on the site,” Larsen continued.
Larsen went on to say Sweden had removed material and debris from the crime scene “because of the amount of steel and concrete in these pipes and the damages we saw – it was after the first dive [with Expressen] – it was my assumption that material had to have been removed because we saw very little small debris. We saw some bigger parts, but no small ones.”
“I think that the main portion of that pipe has probably been removed, so going in and saying where the explosion started and how it happened, I would be surprised if the Swedes haven't taken the actual materials needed to figure that out,” Larsen added.
I then asked Larsen if he believes it's possible that only Swedish investigators have enough material to draw accurate conclusions about the operation. He replied: “It would not surprise me if that was the case.”
The contraption we used to retrieve the sediments from the seafloor. Erik Andersson designed and built the device. The tubes contain sediments (upper right-hand corner).
The lead German reporter and his team, who are covering the Nord Stream sabotage, have been granted access to the same mixture of sediment samples, along with an American reporter and, separately, an unrelated niche-market website with a penchant for sensationalism. Both the German team and the American reporter have done excellent reporting on the sabotage. However, it's important to note that none of these reporters was part of the Baltic expedition. Instead, they have acted as passive recipients of the expedition's data and the collected sediments samples.
Nevertheless, it will be fascinating to see if these other media outlets' lab results show any traces of explosives. I would assume they will make their findings public soon, but I am not sure.
NO SMOKING GUN
Approximately 10 months on, we still don't know who the perpetrator of the attack is. Mainstream media's knee-jerk reaction was to blame Russia without evidence. A few open-source intelligence researchers claim that the presence of Russian submarines and surface vessels implicate Moscow in the crime. But it appears both Swedish and German investigators have thrown cold water on the theory that Russian vessels had something to do with the sabotage.
The relevance of the observed Russian vessels has been “dismissed” by German investigators and their movements “have been able to be excluded from the investigation,” Expressen reported in May. The ships' “positions have been mapped and the conclusion must be that they have not been in such a place that they could have carried out the deed.”
Mats Ljungqvist, the lead prosecutor on the Swedish investigation, told The Guardian in April that he was “aware” of the Russian ship movements before. “This is not new information to us,” he said.
Moreover, in March, Ljungqvist had stated to The New York Times: “Do I think it was Russia that blew up Nord Stream? I never thought so. It's not logical.”
The U.S., Ukraine or Poland, or a combination, are now the prime suspects in the crime. But even if my lab results had detected traces of certain explosive chemicals, they would not have constituted incontrovertible incriminating evidence. Similarly, the presence of such chemicals wouldn't necessarily lend credence to the theory that the six-person team aboard Andromeda perpetrated the sabotage – regardless of whether HMX had been detected.
While it is still uncertain whether Andromeda was involved in the attack, several experts I interviewed expressed deep skepticism about this narrative.
“If you find out what the chemical tag is from the pipeline, and you want it to implicate the Andromeda, then, of course, you can just go and find a bit from the same explosion and rub it all over the Andromeda,” a forensic explosives engineer with an expertise in ballistic analysis told me. (The expert wished to remain anonymous because the expert is involved in a United Nations investigation.)
Chuck Pfarrer, a former U.S. Navy SEAL who served as a Squadron Leader of SEAL Team Six told me that he doubted Andromeda was involved in the sabotage for separate reasons.
“I am a former naval officer, a blue water sailor and have captained sailing vessels on ocean passages. The use of a sailing yacht to conduct an operation of this level of sophistication is, frankly, preposterous,” said Pfarrer. “Andromeda is not big enough to accommodate a captain and mate, a team of divers, a diving supervisor and tender their personal equipment, a number of sophisticated custom-made demolition charges, diving rigs and related life-support equipment, compressors, and a dozen large cylinders of compressed mixed helium/oxygen or nitrox breathing gasses that would be necessary to conduct dives to these depths.”
O'Connor agreed with Pfarrer.
“The comments that this type of diving operation is not complicated” and “the idea that the attackers rented a boat are wrong,” O'Connor said. “The claim of using a rental boat and that HMX residue was found: how convenient no evidence is required to support the claim.”
It is notable, however, that a blend of HMX and RDX is contained in the Composition C-4 explosive made by the U.S., according to Vining, though he says he doesn't “believe the U.S. was involved in the sabotage.”
Furthermore, HMX (octogen) happens to be the one of the “most powerful solid explosive[s] produced on a large scale in the U.S.,” while Poland, whose territory allegedly served as an operating base for the saboteurs, “is one of the few countries where octogen is produced on an industrial scale.” And Ukraine, for its part, has participated with the U.S. in maritime exercises involving divers for around a quarter of a century.
Yet the analysis results would not have been a smoking gun, no matter what traces of explosive chemicals had been detected.
“Nowadays,” O'Connor said, “every country has and uses everybody else's stuff.”
Jeffrey Brodsky is the only reporter to visit all four blast sites of the Nord Stream sabotage. He writes the “Un americano en España” column for Diario16. His writing has appeared in Jacobin, El País, La Vanguardia (in Spanish and Catalan), Discourse, In These Times and The Copperfield Review, among others. He speaks Spanish fluently. You can find him on Twitter @JeffreyBrodsky5 and jeffreyabrodsky.com.