The extent of the damage is clearly visible.
According to the first underwater images unveiled by the Swedish daily Expressen on Tuesday, a section of at least 50 m of the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline is missing, following the alleged sabotage at the end of September in the Baltic Sea.
Filmed Monday at around 80 m depth, the video of one of the four leak sites reveals that more than 50 m of the gas pipeline have been destroyed or at least covered by the seabed following the explosions responsible for the damage.
Första bilderna från sprängda gasröret på Östersjöns botten – här inträffade explosionen i Nord Stream 1. Expressen på dishes vid södra Östersjön – läs mer och se bilder: https://t.co/dCtdzR00vU.
pic.twitter.com/6FipgJijSJ
— Expressen (@Expressen) October 18, 2022
“Only extreme force can bend metal as thick as we see it,” explains Trond Larsen, the drone pilot from the Norwegian agency Blue Eye Robotics who was responsible for driving the submersible device that filmed the images.
We can “see a large impact on the seabed around the gas pipeline”, he specifies to the Swedish daily.
The idea of an international investigation is moving away
The two Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines were damaged by at least two explosions in Baltic Sea waters resulting in four leaks.
After huge methane fumes, these have gradually come to an end and the last of them has not been visible on the surface since Friday, according to the Swedish coastguard.
Located in international waters off the Danish island of Bornholm, the damaged sites are two of them in the Danish exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and the other two in that of Sweden.
Read alsoNord Stream: underwater drones, divers, satellites… after the sabotage, a long-awaited investigation
On October 6, the Swedish authorities announced that they had carried out an underwater inspection of the site and had collected “evidence” confirming the suspicions of a very probable act of sabotage.
On Tuesday, the Danish police announced, together with the intelligence services PET, that they had also carried out several inspections of the leaks present in the Danish area.
“The inspections confirmed that there was extensive damage to Nord Stream 1 and 2 in the Danish Exclusive Economic Zone and that this damage was caused by powerful explosions,” they said in a statement.
Denmark, Sweden and Germany are investigating the alleged sabotage domestically, but the option of an international investigation - which Russia wants to join - has receded in recent days.
This Tuesday, the Kremlin has the European countries managed to "put the responsibility on Russia, which is absurd".
“Russia would not blow up its own gas pipeline,” commented presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Moscow, on the other hand, accuses Western countries of being behind the explosions.
Linking Russia to Germany, the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines had been at the heart of geopolitical tensions between the West and Russia.
Washington denounced them as an instrument of Europe's dependence on Moscow.
Although out of service due to the consequences of the war in Ukraine, the pipelines contained tens of thousands of tons of gas when they were damaged.
