Europe was looking into two Russian gas pipeline leaks that caused the Baltic Sea to churn on Tuesday, raising concerns about infrastructure sabotage at the centre of an energy conflict from Copenhagen to Moscow.
The identities of those who might be responsible for any wrongdoing on the Nord Stream pipelines, which Russia and its European partners spent billions of dollars constructing, remained mostly unknown.
While the Danish leader acknowledged it could not be ruled out, the prime minister of Poland accused sabotage of the leaks without providing any supporting evidence.
Russia stated there was a chance of sabotage and that the incident jeopardised the security of Europe’s energy supply after the West imposed sanctions due to Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Without providing any evidence, a top Ukrainian official claimed it was a Russian attack intended to destabilise Europe.
The Nord Stream pipelines have been focal points in an intensifying energy conflict between Moscow and European cities that has wreaked havoc on the biggest Western economies, driven up gas prices, and triggered a search for alternate energy sources.
The day after a leak on the neighbouring Nord Stream 2 pipeline was detected, which led Denmark to impose shipping restrictions and a tiny no-fly zone, Sweden’s Maritime Authority issued a warning about two leaks in the Nord Stream 1 pipeline.
The military of Denmark published a video of bubbles rising to the ocean’s surface. The greatest gas leak has disrupted the surface by more than 1 km (0.6 miles) in diameter, armed forces said.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said at the opening of a new pipeline between Norway and Poland, “Today we faced an act of sabotage. We don’t know all the details of what happened, but we see clearly that it’s an act of sabotage, related to the next step of escalation of the situation in Ukraine.”
According to Sweden’s National Seismology Centre and public broadcaster SVT, seismic surveys conducted in Denmark and Sweden on Monday revealed strong explosions in the vicinity of the leaks. On Monday, two spikes were detected by a seismograph on the Danish island of Bornholm, according to the German geological research centre GFZ.
According to Kristoffer Bottzauw, the head of Denmark’s Energy Agency, the leaks in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline were significant and it might take up to a week for the gas to stop leaking out of the pipeline.
If ships reached the area, they might lose buoyancy.
Methane-filled sea surfaces increase the likelihood of explosions in the vicinity, according to Bottzauw.
Sabotage could not be ruled out, according to Mette Frederiksen, the prime minister of Denmark. We are talking about three leaks that are separated from one another, so it is difficult to think that it is a coincidence, she said.
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