NATO slams 'sabotage' of pipeline as environmental costs assessed
independence.ie, September 30, 2022 | Nato yesterday issued its strongest statement yet over the breaches in the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea, describing the damage as the result of “deliberate, reckless, and irresponsible acts of sabotage”.
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| File Photo/Courtesy: Nord Stream Pipeline Leaks Appear to Be Result of Deliberate Act – Voice of America |
The underwater blasts have raised tensions in northern Europe, and stoked fears that the war in Ukraine could spill into the realm of vital energy infrastructure – as well as concerns over the environmental impact of the leaks.
Images released yesterday by the Swedish Coast Guard show a large mass of methane bubbles on the sea surface emanating from the leak in the two pipelines that make up Nord Stream 1 and a smaller mass above the single Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
The statement noted there are four leaks across the three pipelines, not three as had been widely reported.
The Nato statement said any deliberate attack against a member of the 30-country bloc’s infrastructure would “be met with a united and determined response,” echoing the EU’s warning the day before about a “robust and united response” to any attacks on energy infrastructure.
An EU official reiterated yesterday that the damage to the pipelines was “not a coincidence”.
Asked what Europe would do in response to the sabotage, the official said there was “a lot of co-ordination and discussion among the member states,” but declined to get into specifics.
Danish and Swedish authorities have ruled out natural causes for the explosions detected on Monday that caused the leaks.
The Swedish National Seismic Network (SNSN) registered two distinct blasts in the vicinity of the Danish island of Bornholm and said they were similar in nature to explosions from Swedish military exercises they periodically monitor.
“This looks like other blasts,” Bjorn Lund, director of the network, told reporters.
Cautioning that it was a preliminary estimate, he said the strength of the larger second blast was equivalent to 100-200kg of TNT.
The first was smaller and consequently harder to measure.
With the consensus among European leaders that sabotage was involved, suspicion is increasingly falling on Russia, which has used energy supplies as leverage against Europe since the invasion of Ukraine.
Russian Navy ships were spotted in the vicinity of the leaks on Monday and Tuesday, Western intelligence officials told CNN.
It is not clear if those ships were in any way involved with the pipeline explosions.
The Kremlin responded to the allegation, noting that there was a larger Nato presence in the area.
It is not uncommon for naval vessels from both Nato countries and Russia to be present in the strategically important Baltic Sea region.
The Kremlin has denied responsibility for the incident, suggesting yesterday that the incidents should be investigated as “an act of terrorism” and saying a co-ordinated international investigation was required, as Russia is the majority owner of both pipelines.
While experts say the resulting gas leak could amount to the largest-ever single release of methane gas into the atmosphere, it may not have been enough to have a major effect on climate change.
A worst-case calculation by the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences in France, equated it to what comes from about one million cars in a year – so it is a comparatively minor increase on the amount currently generated by the 250 million cars in the EU in 2020.
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