“Nice New Pipeline You’ve Got There. Shame If Something Happened to It.”

Nord Stream Pipeline leaking into the Baltic Sea.

CNBC:

Nord Stream AG, the operator of the two pipelines, said Tuesday that three known gas leaks caused “unprecedented” damage. The company added that it was not possible to determine when the gas network system’s capacity would be restored.

Seismologists on Monday reported explosions in the vicinity of the unusual Nord Stream gas leaks, prompting gas to spew into the Baltic Sea.

Denmark’s armed forces said video footage showed the largest gas leak created a surface disturbance of roughly 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) in diameter, while the smallest leak caused a circle of approximately 200 meters.

Danish and Swedish authorities declared a no-shipping zone around the location of the leak, which is situated in international waters but inside Denmark and Sweden’s exclusive economic zone.

The cause is not yet known. Some European leaders have suggested possible sabotage, particularly as the suspected attack comes amid a bitter energy standoff between Brussels and Moscow.

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BBC:

Ukraine has accused Russia of causing leaks in two major gas pipelines to Europe in what it described as a “terrorist attack”.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said the damage to Nord Stream 1 and 2 was “an act of aggression” towards the EU.

He added that Russia wanted to cause pre-winter panic and urged the EU to increase military support for Ukraine.

Seismologists reported underwater blasts before the leaks emerged.

“There is no doubt that these were explosions,” said Bjorn Lund of Sweden’s National Seismology Centre, as quoted by local media.

The operators of Nord Stream 2 warned of a loss of pressure in the pipeline on Monday afternoon. That led to a warning from Danish authorities that ships should avoid the area near the island of Bornholm.

The operator of Nord Stream 1 said the undersea lines had simultaneously sustained “unprecedented” damage in one day.

Denmark’s Defence Command has released footage of the leaks which shows bubbles at the surface of the Baltic Sea near the island.

The largest patch of sea disturbance is 1km (0.6 miles) in diameter, it says.

“Gas leak from NS-1 [Nord Stream 1] is nothing more than a terrorist attack planned by Russia and an act of aggression towards the EU. Russia wants to destabilise the economic situation in Europe and cause pre-winter panic,” Ukraine’s Mr Podolyak tweeted in English.

He also called on European partners, particularly Germany, to increase military support for Ukraine.

“The best response and security investment are tanks for Ukraine. Especially German ones,” he said.

Other European leaders have raised the idea that the damage to the pipelines was deliberately inflicted.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki blamed it on sabotage and said it was probably linked to the war in Ukraine.

Denmark’s Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, said it was too early to come to conclusions, but that it was hard to imagine the multiple leaks could be a coincidence.

At the same time, unconfirmed reports in German media said authorities were not ruling out an attack on the undersea gas network.

A Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said he was “extremely concerned” about the incident, and the possibility of a deliberate attack could not be ruled out.

The EU has previously accused Russia of using a reduction in gas supplies as an economic weapon, in response to European sanctions imposed because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

However, Moscow denies this, saying the sanctions have made it impossible to maintain the gas infrastructure properly.

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Thank you, USA. pic.twitter.com/nALlYQ1Crb

— Radek Sikorski MEP (@radeksikorski) September 27, 2022

Eugyppius suspects that we did it.

Radosław Sikorski, MEP, former Polish defence minister and husband of well-connected neoconservative intellectual Anne Appelbaum, has publicly thanked the United States for attacking the Nord Stream pipelines. (see above)

Jim Geraghty, senior political correspondent for the American political journal National Review, has also praised the attacks in a brief column under the headline “Who Will Rid Me of This Meddlesome Pipeline?” He’s been arguing about the importance of taking Nord Stream 2 offline since February, and suggests that the present attacks reflect his influence.

The biggest detail to break since I went to sleep yesterday, is this claim made by an anonymous intelligence source to Der Spiegel, that the CIA had warned Germany of Baltic pipeline attacks over the summer.