What Is and What Isn’t Known About the Nord Stream Sabotage*

The public is still in the dark about the attack on the pipelines that transported Russian natural gas to Europe across the Baltic Sea. Will the Swedish prosecutor switch on the lights?

Readers of Jules Verne’s canonical novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas aren’t made to wait long before the “mysterious and puzzling phenomenon” that has “excited the public mind” and “the Governments of several States” is unmasked. Relatively early on in the book, what has allegedly damaged subsea telecommunication cables and been described as either a “monster of colossal strength” or “a submarine vessel of enormous motive power” is revealed as the hitherto unknown, anti-imperial Captain Nemo and his clandestine submarine, Nautilus. 

It doesn’t appear, however, that Swedish, German or Danish investigators are following Verne’s lead in swiftly satisfying the world’s curiosity about real-life “secrets in the deeps”: the perpetrator(s) of the sabotage on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea. In fact, comments by Mats Ljungqvist, the lead prosecutor on the Swedish investigation, may indicate that the public will never be told who is responsible for the underwater explosions that ruptured the pipelines connecting Russian natural gas reserves to the European Union on September 26, 2022. 

“We hope to conclude the investigation” before the end of the year, Mr. Ljungqvist told Reuters in September.

He added, though, an enormous caveat: “By ‘conclude,’ I mean that we close the investigation or take a decision to bring charges against someone.”

I contacted Mr. Ljungqvist to ask whether he intends to share the identity of the perpetrator(s) even if he doesn’t charge anyone with the crime. But he has refused to offer any comment.

What are the theories?

Seymour Hersh, the veteran investigative journalist, published a report anonymously sourced to someone ​“with direct knowledge of the operational planning” of the attack. Mr. Hersh says the source told him that United States Navy divers, in a CIA operation ordered by President Joe Biden, planted the bombs that blew up three of the four lines of Nord Stream 1 and 2.

Reporting in American and German mainstream media claims the saboteurs are a six-person team of pro-Ukrainians operating from a 50-foot pleasure yacht called Andromeda. General Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s highest-ranking military officer, approved the attack and Colonel Roman Chervinsky coordinated it, according to unnamed “people familiar with his role,” as well as US and European officials cited anonymously in The Washington Post last week. The sabotage, the mainstream media reports also insist, was carried out without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s knowledge and despite the US warning against it.

Both Mr. Zaluzhny and Mr. Chervinsky have suggested that speculation about their involvement in the attack is Russian disinformation. 

A few open-source intelligence researchers claim that the presence of Russian submarines and surface vessels implicates Moscow in the crime.

Sonar image of the blast site at Nord Stream 2 Line A in the Swedish exclusive economic zone captured by Captain Patrik Juhlin of the Baltic Explorer.

Why was one of the lines undamaged in the attack?

In May, I joined an expedition to all four blast sites.

While determining why one line of Nord Stream remains intact was not one of the expedition’s objectives, it seems that experiences at sea provided a serendipitous discovery: It might be that Line B of Nord Stream 2 wasn’t blown up and Nord Stream 2 Line A was blown up twice due to a mistake in the operation.

The massive power cables lying on the seabed near at least two of the blast sites have the potential to distort the Earth’s magnetic field, leading to erroneous compass readings of up to 180 degrees. So, at a depth of 80 meters, a diver’s sense of direction could have been easily disoriented. Our drone operator experienced this magnetic interference with his compass at the blast site of Nord Stream 2 Line A in the Swedish exclusive economic zone. Similarly, in October 2022, the compass of another submersible drone operator was disrupted while filming Nord Stream 1 Line A. 

Another factor that might explain why one line was blown up twice is obstructions to the divers’ vision. When reviewing the underwater videos from our expedition to all four blast sites, it becomes evident that whenever the drone approached the pipelines or the seafloor, it stirred up clouds of silt. These mud-colored, silt clouds obstructed our view and could have also impaired the divers’ visibility as they dug a small hole in which to place the explosives, possibly beneath or next to the pipelines.

Line B of Nord Stream 2 lies a mere 50 meters from the blast site at Line A. The Baltic Sea is probably the most heavily trafficked and monitored body of water in the world. The divers, it seems, were operating with malfunctioning compasses and were facing reduced visibility. They were also likely nervous and rushed as they were executing the largest instance of industrial sabotage in history. So it is plausible that bombs were accidently rigged to Line A of Nord Stream 2 twice.

Mr. Hersh has a different theory. In an email he said:

[T]he answer is very prosaic. The technical diving that was involved left the divers, down 260 feet, only 15 minutes to place the bombs and do whatever was needed to insure that they could be blown on demand via low frequency sonars. The two-man team only were able to get three sets done in the required time and the risk of staying down longer to set the C4 [explosives] needed to blow the fourth set of two lies. So they were pulled up, protecting the divers being more impt [important] than anything else on the mission.

What is known about the attack?

Despite divergent theories about the responsible party for the attack and the fact that none of the three investigating countries – Sweden, Germany or Denmark – has released findings from its investigation, much is now known about the attack.

The objective of the expedition I joined was to obtain never-before-seen underwater drone footage and sonar images. The data enabled experts to determine the amount of explosives used in the attack, the type of charges, and their placement.

It is almost 100% certain that the amount of explosives used at the blast site of Nord Stream 2 Line A in the exclusive economic zone of Sweden (NS2AS) ranged from 10 to 50 kilograms. This amount is as much as ten to fifty times lower than what had been reported in mainstream media.

Experts who were given access to the data obtained on the expedition believe that the type of charges used at NS2AS were very likely slabs of explosives or “bulk” explosives. 

The data indicated, the experts said, that the bombs were very likely placed on the seabed next to the pipelines. It appears the bombs were also slightly buried – something that divers would have been able to do, but not unmanned underwater vehicles or remotely operated vehicles, according to experts.

During the expedition, we also collected sediment samples from the Baltic seafloor. A colleague and I then took the samples to a laboratory to have them analyzed for explosive traces. The analyzed samples didn’t show any traces of explosives, and there may be a number of explanations for this lack of detection.

What isn’t known about the attack?

Apart from the country or countries behind the attack and the identities of the saboteurs – as well as why one line was blown up twice – there is still a lot of unknown about the sabotage.

Why, for instance, were the selected blast sites at a depth of approximately 80 meters? Along the pipelines, which measure about 1,200 kilometers, there are many places where the depths are much shallower. Reducing the depth for the divers would surely have made the operation safer, faster and easier to execute. 

“East of Bornholm, you have the Bornholm Basin, which is a relatively deep area compared to the shallow area before and after the Nord Stream reaches the Bornholm Basin. Close to Germany, even quite far out, the water is not more than 20 meters deep,” Ola Tunander, who is the author of numerous books on security policy and naval strategy, said in an email.

“For divers, who are not professional military divers, it would be much easier and likely that you would deploy the explosives either before or after the Bornholm Basin,” added Mr. Tunander. 

The two images depict the proposed depth profiles of the Nord Stream 1 lines through the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany.

Graphics: Nord Stream AG, page 107 Espoo Report - Chapter 4 - Description of the Project: https://www.nord-stream.com/press-info/library/?q=espoo&category=&type=3&page=4&country= 

Nord Stream 1 and 2 each have two lines. One of four lines was ruptured southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm. This is the first blast site. Then, seventeen hours later and approximately 75 kilometers away, that same line and two other lines began leaking northeast of Bornholm.

Why not plant the explosives at locations where all four lines run along the seabed quite close to one another? Why risk being spotted while traveling such a long distance? After all, the Baltic Sea is likely the most heavily trafficked and monitored body of water in the world. 

“At the place of explosions, the two gas pipelines are positioned quite far from each other, approximately 1.3 kilometers,” Piotr Przybyło, founder of the energy consultancy GeoModes, said in an email when asked about the three blast sites northeast of Bornholm.

And why did the bombs go off 17 hours apart? Did the presence of military aircraft or surface or subsea vessels necessitate a delay in the detonation? Or were civilian vessels in the area? Was this delay a mistake in the operation?

“Perhaps they [the Americans] first wanted to do a test and check the Russian and others’ reactions with the first explosion at 00:03 UTC before they went for the big explosion [17 hours later],” Mr. Tunander said. They patrolled “the area with a Poseidon [a maritime aircraft] for more than four hours east of Bornholm in the night and early morning” of September 26. 

Mr. Tunander went on to say that the presence of American ships at the time before and after the sabotage is out of the ordinary.

“In Europe, you do not usually have military aircraft in the air at night if it’s not a very specific operation,” he said. “The Poseidon, the tanker aircraft [the US Stratotanker that refueled the Poseidon midair] and the [US] Seahawk helicopter were all linked to the same operation. There were no other military aircraft in the air.”

Unfortunately, at the time of writing, not only do these more detailed questions about the operation lack definitive answers but the truth behind the “mysterious and puzzling phenomenon” of the sabotage on the Nord Stream pipelines parallels the assertion made by Captain Nemo toward the end of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: “Its nationality to you, at least, will be a secret.”

*This article originally appeared in Diario16. It can be read in Spanish here.