‘Sabotage’: What we know about the Nord Stream gas leaks and who was behind them
The EU has declared three leaks in two Russia-Germany gas pipelines to be the work of sabotage and suspicion has fallen on Russia.
Some commentators have suggested the leaks are linked to the Ukraine war, though the Kremlin has described the accusations it was behind them as “predictable” and “stupid”.
Here is what we know about what happened to Nord Stream 1 and 2, who could have been responsible and what’s being done about it.
What happened and where
On Monday morning, at around 2am local time, bubbles are thought to have started erupting on the surface of a section of the Baltic Sea between Sweden and Poland, about 14 miles (23km) southeast of Denmark’s Bornholm Island.
That morning, it was reported that pressure in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline had dropped overnight from 105 bars to 7 bars, indicating a leak.
The Nord Stream 2 pipe runs for 764 miles (1,230km) from Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany and had been due to carry billions of cubic feet of gas to Europe until Russia invaded Ukraine and Germany refused to grant the pipeline’s operators a licence, leaving it mothballed.
Denmark scrambled military aircraft to look for signs of a leak and identified an area of disturbed sea, which they designated a danger to shipping.
The time of the leak was confirmed by readings taken by seismologists in neighbouring countries, who registered the equivalent of an earthquake magnitude of 1.8, which they triangulated to have occurred at almost exactly the same spot as the leak was bubbling to the surface.
About 17 hours after the Nord Stream 2 reading was taken, a second reading was recorded by seismologists northeast of Bornholm, indicating another incident.
Shortly after, Nord Stream AG, the operator of the Nord Stream 1, said it was looking into causes of a drop in pressure in the pipeline.
Again, seismologists’ readings located the incident to a specific location – around 34 miles (55km) northeast of Bornholm Island.
The following morning, Sweden’s Maritime Authority issued a warning of two leaks in the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in its and Danish waters, bringing the total number of leaks to three.
Nord Stream 1 follows a similar but not identical route from Russia to Germany and had been used to ship Russian gas to Europe since 2011, until the outbreak of the Ukraine war.
As Europe reeled from the Vladimir Putin’s invasion, it moved to reduce its reliance on gas from Russia, and simultaneously, flows through Nord Stream 1 to Europe from Russia decreased until no gas was flowing through the pipeline.
Footage from the scene taken from a Danish plane showed frothy seas, up to a kilometre wide.
What do the experts say
Initially, the European countries nearby were cautious, saying investigation was needed to find out what had happened.
The operator of the pipelines said the leaks were “unprecedented”, but did not have an explanation for them.
The Kremlin was quick to say sabotage could not be ruled out.
In the course of Tuesday, seismologists who had recorded the incidents said their analysis indicated the tremors had been caused by explosions.
Bjorn Lund, director of the Swedish National Seismic Network, said: “There’s no doubt, this is not an earthquake.”
By Wednesday, many politicians were adamant that the damage to the pipes was caused by human activity and deliberate, rather than because of earthquakes or accidental.
Danish defence minister Morten Bodskov said on Wednesday: “Our assessment is… that the breakage on the pipes is not an accident but a deliberate act.”
The Danish and Swedish military have been observing the bubbling at the surface. Pic: Swedish Coast Guard
Who was responsible
Very early on, suspicion fell on Russia. A number of commentators asked who would profit from such ruptures in the pipelines, noting how it had the potential to affect gas prices.
Ukraine blamed Russia immediately, with presidential adviser Myhailo Podolyak saying the leak was “a terrorist attack planned by Russia and an act of aggression towards the EU”, without offering any evidence.
Gas prices soared again on Monday, largely in reaction to a threat from Moscow to sanction Ukrainian energy firm Naftogaz, raising the possibility that one of the last functioning Russian gas supply routes to Europe would close down.
But many expressed disbelief that Russia would target infrastructure that carried gas that it had sold, threatening its future revenues. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called such accusations “predictable and… stupid”.
Yet there has been much speculation that an attack by Russia on the pipelines could be a warning to the West not to escalate the Ukraine war further.
This is because the pipelines were not operational at the time and they supplied Russian gas, so would be less likely to be seen as a further significant provocation.
Russia has been becoming increasingly frustrated that Western supplied weapons have been helping Ukraine resist Moscow’s invasion.
On Tuesday Poland’s President Andrzej Duda symbolically opened the valve of a yellow pipe belonging to the Baltic Pipe, a new system sending Norwegian gas across Denmark and the Baltic Sea to Poland, which he hailed as ending “Russian domination in the gas sphere”.
Some commentators have pointed out that while the gas leaks erupted in Denmark and Sweden’s Exclusive Economic Zones, they were outside their territorial waters, and therefore could be classed as having happened in international waters, making retaliation more complicated.
Others have cited the fact that there are significant networks of piping under the North Sea that could be vulnerable to attack. If the cause of the leaks is proven to have been an attack, it would reveal the ease with which undersea infrastructure can be targeted.
The method used by any potential saboteurs is far from clear. Russia has submarines which Western experts say are equipped to attack international internet cables, but there are suggestions the vessel was out of range at the time. Others say deep sea divers, travelling from the nearby Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, could have planted a device.
How will we find out
Experts say they expect that navies from surrounding countries will send teams with specialist experience into the area to carry out investigations.
Mr Bodskov said the Danish military had increased its presence within and around the area of Bornholm and they would be “doing everything within their power to get this clarified which is happening in close collaboration with our partners”.
But he said it may take some weeks.
“If you listen to the experts about how much gas there is the pipes and how long it will take before the pressure drops, then the reality is that might take a week, 14 days before it is calm enough in the area to actually see what has happened,” he added.
Any investigation is likely to look closely at damage to the pipes, which, at around 1,153mm in diameter with 34mm thick steel walls, surrounded by, in some cases, more than 110mm of concrete, would be difficult to crack.
Investigations are likely to look at damage to the pipe which is 34mm thick steel and covered, when underwater, with more than 100mm of concrete
Peter Faulding, one of the foremost British underwater forensic investigators, whose Specialist Group International has been involved in numerous undersea investigations carried out by UK police, said he expects the initial investigation to involve remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), which are also known as drones.
“People will be very wary about putting divers near it because… you’ve got a large amount of gas coming out,” he told Sky News.
“I would say they’d be using remote operated vehicles to go down. An ROV, because they have manipulators on the front. If there was any debris, the manipulator… can retrieve the evidence and an ROV will give crystal clear pictures without putting a diver in jeopardy.
“A lot them are autonomous now. They can send them down without a cable and they can actually pick things up off the sea bed.
“You would see what it was. If it was done with explosive, it will be very rough. There’ll be residues. There’d be fragments.“
“From that, they can carry out appropriate forensic tests to see what explosive it was, if an explosive has been used.”
Mr Faulding, who has previous military experience and carries out consultancy work for the energy industry, said once it was safe, because the pipelines are at a depth of about 70m, the navies would probably put down divers operating out of a diving bell, but they would have to breathe a special mixture and would work in a similar way to those who carry out work on undersea oil facilities.
He said it should not be difficult to work out which explosive, if any, had been used, but it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to work out who carried out an attack.
What are the consequences
In the immediate aftermath, European leaders expressed concern and said they would work to find out what had happened.
The gas markets remained volatile, but experts said that much of Tuesday’s volatility was due to fears that Russia would stop shipping gas through Ukraine, rather that because of the possibility of an attack on Nord Stream 1 or 2.
Nonetheless, experts said that the leaks had added to the uncertainty that has been fuelling much higher gas prices this year than in previous years.
Norway has a substantial gas and oil industry network across the North Sea, supplying much of Europe
Gas analyst Tom Marzec-Manser told Sky News: “The market opened bullishly yesterday in response to the Nord Stream stuff. But then it jumped significantly when that Ukraine development happened, when Gazprom threatened the sanctions. That actually was a larger wedge of the gains yesterday. But it’s definitely all part and parcel of the… loss of yet more Russian gas (being) the main driver to a 27% jump yesterday in wholesale prices.”
Despite doubts in the gas industry that any potential attacks could spread, Norway’s state oil company, Equinor, said it would raise its level of preparedness.
The alert was raised overnight and applies to all of Equinor’s facilities.
Norway is a major producer of offshore oil and gas and its energy exports have surged as European countries scramble to find alternatives to Russian energy supplies.
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said: “We are concerned with taking good care of the safety of our own oil and gas installations, and we have stepped up the state of preparedness regarding them today.”
Royal Norwegian Navy officer Lieutenant Commander Tor Ivar Strommen warned that there could be attacks on Norwegian energy exports “in the next half year”.
NATO and the European Union stressed the need to protect critical infrastructure and warned of a “robust and united response” should there be more attacks.
Mr Strommen told Reuters: “The Norwegian government has to realise that by far the most important strategic object in all of Europe now is the energy or gas imports from Norway.
“If those deliveries should be cut or stopped or reduced by a large amount, this would cause a complete energy crisis in Europe.”
Iran’s foreign ministry has told Sky News there is still a chance for peace talks with the United States.
In an interview in Iran’s foreign ministry in Tehran, a senior Iranian official said despite the attacks on his country by America and Israel, back-channel efforts are under way to restart the search for a diplomatic solution.
The comments will be seen as an olive branch for the Trump administration to seize as it explores a diplomatic way forward.
Sky News is one of only a handful of foreign news organisations allowed access to Iran following its short and devastating war with Israel.
We also filmed the impact of Israel’s attacks on ordinary Iranians in Tehran.
In the wake of a ceasefire declared by Donald Trump, Esmaeil Baqaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, said the US must show it is genuine in its desire for peace.
“Diplomacy must not be abused or used as a tool for deception or for simply a sort of psychological warfare against their adversaries.”
Iran felt diplomacy had been betrayed, he said. US-Iranian talks were on the verge of reconvening when Israel attacked his country.
And America had breached international law in its support of what he called “Zionist aggression”.
But Mr Baqaei said “diplomacy never ends, there are contacts, indirectly. My minister is talking to Oman, Qatar and others”.
President Trump says he is ready to talk with Iran, but major stumbling blocks need to be overcome.
The US wants Iran to give up nuclear enrichment completely. Iran has long insisted it has the right to carry on.
Read more from Sky News:
Diogo Jota’s tragic final Instagram post after marrying childhood sweetheart
Thousands of passengers hit by wave of flight cancellations
A residential building hit by Israel in Tehran
A residential building hit by Israel in Tehran
Across town, we witnessed the impact of Israel’s attacks in Gisha, an upmarket neighbourhood of Tehran.
Israel claims its attacks on Iranian figures were precision-targeted. In reality they appear to have been far from surgical.
The airstrike came at 10.30 Friday morning two weeks ago. It ripped a hole through four floors of reinforced concrete in the residential apartment block.
The target may have been a nuclear scientist living there, but everyone in the building is now without a home. Engineers say it will almost certainly need to be torn down.
The mood in the Iranian capital seems subdued and tense.
Iranians fear Israelis will renew their air campaign despite the ceasefire, but the foreign ministry spokesperson said they “will respond” to any Israeli attack.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
There is widespread resentment of the leadership after nationwide social unrest and massive economic problems.
But the Israeli attacks have rallied many Iranians around their government all the same.
They had hoped diplomacy with America could deliver a new deal and an end to sanctions, then Israel began its 12-day aerial onslaught and the US joined in.
Iranians hope somehow talks can be restarted, but they also know the chances of progress are, for now at least, not great.
Sky News analysis shows that aid distributions by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) are associated with a significant increase in deaths.
Warning: This article contains descriptions of people being killed and images of blood on a hospital floor.
The US and Israeli-backed group has been primarily responsible for aid distribution since Israel lifted its 11-week blockade of the Gaza Strip last month.
The GHF distributes aid from four militarised Secure Distribution Sites (SDSs) – three of which are in the far south of the Gaza Strip. Under the previous system, the UN had distributed aid through hundreds of sites across the territory.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, 600 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid from GHF sites, which charities and the UN have branded “death traps”.
The UN put the figure at 410, but has not updated this number since 24 June. Both the UN and health ministry source their figures from hospitals near the aid sites.
Speaking to Sky News, GHF chief Johnnie Moore disputed that these deaths were connected with his organisation’s operations.
“Almost anything that happens in the Gaza Strip is going to take place in proximity to something,” he said.
“Our effort is actually working despite a disinformation campaign, that is very deliberate and meant to shut down our efforts.
“We just want to feed Gazans. That’s the only thing that we want to do.”
However, new analysis by Sky’s Data & Forensics Unit shows that deaths in Gaza have spiked during days with more GHF distributions.
On days when GHF conducts just two distributions or fewer, health officials report an average of 48 deaths and 189 injuries across the Gaza Strip.
On days with five or six GHF distributions, authorities have reported almost three times as many casualties.
Out of 77 distributions at GHF sites between 5 June and 1 July, Sky News found that 23 ended in reports of bloodshed (30%).
At one site, SDS4 in the central Gaza Strip, as many as half of all distributions were followed by reports of fatal shootings.
Sky News spoke to one woman who had been attending SDS4 for 10 days straight.
“I witnessed death first-hand – bodies lay bleeding on the ground all around me,” says Huda.
“This is not right. Food should be delivered to UN warehouses, and this entire operation must be shut down.”
Huda told Sky News that she has been trying to obtain aid from SDS4, in the central Gaza Strip, for the past 10 days
Huda says that the crowds are forced to dodge bombs and bullets “just to get a bag of rice or pasta”.
“You may come back, you may not,” she says. “I was injured by shrapnel in my leg. Despite that, I go back, because we really have nothing in our tent.”
One of the deadliest incidents at SDS4 took place in the early hours of 24 June.
According to eyewitnesses, Israeli forces opened fire as people advanced towards aid trucks carrying food to the site, which was due to open.
“It was a massacre,” said Ahmed Halawa. He said that tanks and drones fired at people “even as we were fleeing”. At least 31 people were killed, according to medics at two nearby hospitals.
Footage from that morning shows the floor of one of the hospitals, al Awda, covered in blood.
The IDF says it is reviewing the incident.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Doctor’s final moments revealed
Issues of crowd control
Unnamed soldiers who served near the aid sites told Israeli newspaper Haaretz that they were instructed to use gunfire as a method of crowd control.
An IDF spokesperson told Sky News that it “strongly rejected” the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians.
“To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are “being examined by the relevant IDF authorities”.
Eyewitness testimony and footage posted to social media suggest that crowd control is a frequent problem at the sites.
The video below, uploaded on 12 June, shows a crowd rushing into SDS1, in Gaza’s far southwest. What sounds like explosions are audible in the background.
Footage from the same site, uploaded on 15 June, shows Palestinians searching for food among hundreds of aid parcels scattered across the ground.
Sam Rose, the director of UNRWA operations in Gaza, describes the distribution process as a “free-for-all”.
“What they’re doing is they’re loading up the boxes on the ground and then people just rush in,” he says.
Sky News has found that the sites typically run out of food within just nine minutes. In a quarter of cases (23%), the food is finished by the time the site was due to officially open.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Doctors on the frontline
Confusing communications
Sky News analysis suggests that the issue may be being compounded by poor communications from GHF.
Between 19 June and 1 July, 86% of distributions were announced with less than 30 minutes’ notice. One in five distributions was not announced at all prior to the site opening.
The GHF instructs Palestinians to take particular routes to the aid centres, and to wait at specified locations until the official opening times.
The map for SDS1 instructs Palestinians to take a narrow agricultural lane that no longer exists, while the maps for SDS2 and SDS3 give waiting points that are deep inside IDF-designated combat zones.
The maps do not make the boundaries of combat zones clear or specify when it is safe for Palestinians to enter them.
The same is true for SDS4, the only distribution site outside Gaza’s far south. Its waiting point is located 1.2 miles (2km) inside an IDF combat zone.
The official map also provides no access route from the northern half of Gaza, including Gaza City, across the heavily militarised Netzarim corridor.
“They don’t know what they’re doing,” says UNRWA’s Sam Rose.
“They don’t have anyone working on these operations who has any experience of operating, of administering food distributions because anyone who did have that experience wouldn’t want to be part of it because this isn’t how you treat people.”
Once the sites are officially open, Palestinians are allowed to travel the rest of the way.
The distance from waiting point to aid site is typically over a kilometre, making it difficult for Palestinians to reach the aid site before the food runs out.
The shortest distance is at SDS4 – 689m. At a pace of 4km per hour, this would take around 10 minutes to cover.
But of the 18 distributions at this site which were announced in advance, just two lasted longer than 10 minutes before the food ran out.
“We don’t have time to pick anything up,” says Huda, who has been visiting SDS4 for the past 10 days.
In all that time, she says, all she had managed to take was a small bag of rice.
“I got it from the floor,” she says. “We didn’t get anything else.”
More than 200 charities and non-governmental organisations have called for the closure of GHF and the reinstatement of previous, UN-led mechanisms of aid distribution.
In a joint statement issued on 1 July, some of the world’s largest humanitarian groups accused the GHF of violating international humanitarian principles. They said the scheme was forcing two million people into overcrowded, militarised zones where they face daily gunfire.
Additional reporting by OSINT producers Sam Doak and Lina-Serene.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
World
Teens unable to walk, mothers with rash-covered babies: Kush is ruining lives – and made with ingredients shipped from the UK
A red shipping container sits on the tarmac of Sierra Leone’s Queen Elizabeth II Quay, under swinging cranes and towering stacks of similar steel boxes.
This one will likely be parked at the port permanently. The contents are suspected to be the ingredients of kush, the deadly synthetic drug ravaging Sierra Leone.
Sky News was given access to the container two weeks after it was seized.
“Preliminary testing has shown that these items are kush ingredients,” says the secretary of the Ports Authority, Martin George, as he points to the marked contraband in massive multicoloured Amazon UK bags and a large blue vat of strongly smelling acetone.
He adds: “Shipped from the United Kingdom.”
The container was selected for screening based on its origin. The UK is with the EU and South America on the list of places considered high risk for the import of illicit substances fuelling the drug trade in Sierra Leone and the region.
Kush has shaken this part of West Africa to its core – not just Sierra Leone but Liberia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and the Gambia. It is highly addictive, ever-evolving and affordable.
The sprayed grey-green marshmallow leaves are rolled in a joint like marijuana and are extremely dangerous. Samples of the drug tested by researchers contained nitazens, one of the deadliest synthetic drugs in the world.
“It was a shock to find them in around half of the kush samples we tested, as at that point there was no public evidence they had reached Africa,” says Lucia Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo from Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) who independently tested kush from Sierra Leone.
“Nitazenes are among the deadliest drugs available on retail drug markets across the world – with one nitazene in kush in Freetown being 25 times stronger than fentanyl,” she added.
The shocking effects of its potency can be seen on the bodies of young men and women around Freetown. Teenagers with sores eating away at their legs, unable to walk. Mothers who smoked during pregnancy carrying sickly rash-covered infants. Young men drooling from the intense high and slumped over while still standing.
They are not the fringes of Sierra Leonean society but a growing demographic of kush users searching for an escape. People riddled by poverty and unemployment, living in the dark corners of a capital city which has endured a brutal civil war and Ebola epidemic in the last three decades alone.
An entire community of men and women of all ages is held together by kush addiction under a main road that cuts through the heart of Freetown.
They call themselves the “Under de Bridge family” and live in the shadows of the overpass, surrounded by the sewage and rubbish discarded by their neighbours.
One of them tells us the harsh conditions drive him to keep smoking kush even after losing more than 10 friends to the drug – killed by large infected sores and malnutrition.
Nearby, 17-year-old Ibrahim is pained by growing sores and says the drug is destroying his life.
“This drug is evil. This drug is bad. I don’t know why they gave me this drug in this country. Our brothers are suffering. Some are dying, some have sores on their feet. This drug brings destruction,” he says.
“Look at me – just because of this drug. I have sores on my feet.”
Read more from Sky News:
Man separated from family by war returns home
Sky reporter returns to family home left in ruins
Across a stream of sewage, a young mother expecting her second child cries from fear and anguish when I ask her about the risk of smoking while pregnant.
“Yes, I know the risk,” Elizabeth says, nodding.
“I’ll keep smoking while I live here but I have nowhere else to go. It helps me forget my worries and challenges.”
Life under the bridge is disrupted from its sleepiness by a yell. A plain-clothed police officer is chasing a child accused of selling kush.
The lucrative industry is absorbing all age groups and spreading rapidly to nearby countries – even passing through three different borders to reach the smallest nation in mainland Africa, The Gambia.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Police hunt for kush dealers in West Africa
Gambian law enforcement has cracked down on spreading kush use with regular zero tolerance drug raids. The small population is extremely vulnerable and the country is yet to open its first rehabilitation centre. Rising xenophobia seems to be mostly directed at Sierra Leonean immigrants who they blame for smuggling kush into the country.
We spoke to one man from Sierra Leone who was arrested for dealing kush in The Gambia and spent a year in prison. He says that though he feels saddened other Sierra Leoneans are being alienated as a result of the trade he was involved in, he has no remorse for “following orders”.
“Do I feel guilty for selling it? No, I don’t feel guilty. I’m not using my money to buy the kush, people always give me money to get kush for them,” he tells Sky News anonymously.
“I needed a job. I needed to take care of my son.”
Gambia’s hardline approach has been credited with driving its local kush industry underground rather than eradicating it but is still hailed as the most impactful strategy in the region. Sierra Leone’s government told Sky News it needs help from surrounding countries and the UK to tackle the sprawling crisis.
Transnational crime experts like Lucia Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo see the rise of kush as part of a global synthetic drugs network that requires a multi-national response.
“Coordinated action is urgently needed across the supply chain, particularly focused on nitazenes – the deadliest kush component,” says Ms Bird.
“Our research indicated that kush components are being imported to West Africa from countries in Asia and Europe, likely including the UK. All countries in the supply chain bear responsibility to act to mitigate the devastating and expanding impacts of kush across West Africa, a region with scarce resources to respond.”
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike