WASHINGTON—It’s a major international mystery with global consequences: Who was behind the explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines last year in the Baltic Sea?
Nord Stream 1 was completed and came online in 2011. Nord Stream 2 was not finished until the fall of 2021 but never became operational due to the launch of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.Both pipelines bypass existing routes that go through Ukraine, meaning not only that Ukraine loses income from transit fees but also is unable to directly use the gas they carry.
After Russia’s Feb. 24, 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Germany withdrew permission for Nord Stream 2, which had not yet come online.First, Gazprom halted gas flows through Nord Stream 1 on Sept. 2, 2022, citing issues related to European sanctions imposed against Russia over the war in Ukraine. In the immediate aftermath of the explosions, US officials suggested Russia may have been to blame while Russia accused the United States and Britain of being behind them. Investigations by European nations, including Denmark, through whose waters the pipeline travels, and Germany have yet to yield conclusive results.
Germany’s Die Zeit newspaper and German public broadcasters ARD and SWR reported that investigators believed that five men and a woman used a yacht hired by a Ukrainian-owned company in Poland to carry out the attack. German federal prosecutors confirmed that a boat was searched in January but have not confirmed the reported findings.The implications of a determination that Ukraine was behind the explosions are not entirely clear.