Experts are not sure if it was an accident because the explosions were so strong that they were even recorded on the Richter scale of seismic movements.
Who blew up the North Current gas pipelines? Any private detective would start by looking for who would benefit most from the sabotage of Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, designed to supply Russian gas to 52 million European homes, or a quarter of the needs of the EU. What the experts are clear about is that it was not an accident, because the explosions in both, many kilometers away, were so strong that they even registered on the Richter scale of seismic movements. And it is precisely there that Russia and the US got involved yesterday, during the meeting held in New York by the UN Security Council to clarify it.
“The explosions are the latest episode in a long and lasting geopolitical confrontation between the US and Russia, where energy and infrastructure have become the focus and turned into weapons,” concluded Marc-Antoine Eyl Mazzega, director of the Center for Energy and Climate at the Ilfri French Institute for International Relations.
None of the three gas pipelines was operational at the time of the explosions recorded last Monday, but they contained 800 million cubic meters of natural gas that has escaped to the surface due to four leaks. Because of them, the few hopes that there was of controlling the European energy market this winter have also escaped.
Russia, whose state company Gazprom built the facilities under the Baltic Sea together with its European partners to bypass Ukraine, accuses the US of having blown them up “because the sanctions were not enough,” Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia snapped. His American counterpart denied it “categorically”. What would they have to gain, when precisely trying to help European allies wean themselves off Russian oil? Quite simply, “US liquid gas companies must be rubbing their hands,” charged Nebenzia. It is possible, but unlike what happens with Gazprom, the first private company that Valdimir Putin set his eyes on to nationalize 50% and put the other half in the hands of his oligarchs, in the cradle of capitalism the interests of the large energy companies do not always coincide with those in Washington.
unsolved mystery
“Basically Europe has been indefinitely deprived of a key route for the transport of a crucial energy resource,” lamented the Russian ambassador, before recalling that Russia and Gazprom had invested “enormous amounts of money and efforts” for its construction because it is the way shorter and safer way to get Russian gas to European consumers. “Should we expect them to say that after masochistically bombing the nuclear plant we were in ourselves we have now started detonating our own gas pipelines?” he asked wryly. “What is clear is that an act of sabotage of this complexity and scale is well beyond the capacity of ordinary terrorists,” he concluded.
The answer of who blew up Nord Stream has not been answered, because the damage cannot even be assessed until all the gas that could explode if divers are sent to the depths of the Baltic Sea comes out. What is known is that it will further destabilize the European energy market, accelerate the search for alternative energies and cause serious environmental damage to the Baltic Sea, as confirmed by Denmark and Sweden in their letters of concern to the Security Council. Even worse, warned Navid Hanif, assistant to the UN secretary-general for Economic Development: Discharging hundreds of millions of cubic meters of gas into the atmosphere could result in thousands of tons of methane emissions over the next few years. 20 years, which could be equivalent to 80 times the planet-warming power of carbon dioxide, and about 30 times more over a hundred years. An even more disturbing unknown than the identity of the saboteurs, because it is not yet possible to assess how much methane will escape into the atmosphere.
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