A reported gas leak in a Russian pipeline under the Baltic Sea appears to come at the worst possible time as tensions over Ukraine increase and European countries fear a winter of discontent. According to reports published Tuesday, European countries "scrambled to investigate unexplained leaks in two Russian gas pipelines running under the Baltic Sea near Sweden and Denmark."
Last year, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that any entity involved in the pipeline risks US sanctions and should stop its involvement. “As the President has said, Nord Stream 2 is a bad deal — for Germany, for Ukraine, and for our Central and Eastern European allies and partners," he said at the time.
If this was a targeted attack on the pipelines it would serve to demonstrate how energy is increasingly being weaponized
The mysterious happenings at the pipeline come as some media outlets reported protests in Germany regarding energy prices. Germany’s Die Weltsaid that “federal authorities apparently consider targeted attacks to be the cause of the leaks in the two Nord Stream pipelines." And, according to their report, this information was "learned from security circles, meaning that "Sabotage is therefore expected due to the timing, the three lines affected and the strong pressure losses in Nord Stream 1.”
The attack would be anything but trivial, the article says, suggesting that it could have been carried out by special forces.
According to Denmark’s Politiken newspaper, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen views the leaks in the Nord Stream pipeline "with the utmost seriousness."
With the opening of the Baltic Pipe pipeline it appears that the timing is an extraordinary coincidence as this means Poland and Denmark will both be able to receive gas from Norway, as it will transport gas via the North Sea and Denmark to Poland.
"The Baltic Pipe will make it possible to import up to 10 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas annually from Norway to Poland and to transport 3 bcm of gas from Poland to Denmark," the statement continued, saying that the start of gas transmission is planned for 1 October 2022.
And then, the same day as this was announced the leaks were found in Nord Stream 1 and 2, potentially harming pipelines that took billions of investment over the years.
If a country was involved in sabotaging major pipelines this would mark a huge escalation in the conflict relating to Ukraine; expanding the conflict to the waters of the Baltic. It shows that energy can become a weapon and that countries should plan on this fact for the future.
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