After months of forensic investigation, German investigators have found no evidence of Russian involvement in last September’s blasts that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
Germany’s Federal Prosecutor General, who is leading the official probe into the blasts, said in a newspaper interview published on Friday that there is no evidence tying Russia to the undersea explosions near the coast of Denmark.
“According to investigators, the probe into the blowing up of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea has thus far not yielded any evidence of Russia’s authorship,” the German newspaper Münchner Merkur reported Friday, citing the country’s top investigator.
The German news channel NTV reported the Prosecutor General’s remarks:
When blasts hit the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines last September, Moscow was quickly seen as a suspect. Now the investigators are clarifying that there is no evidence of this so far. (…)So far, German investigators have found no evidence that Russia was behind the explosions that hit the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines. “This cannot be proven at the moment, the investigations are ongoing,” Prosecutor General Peter Frank told the (newspaper) “Welt am Sonntag”. Supported by two research ships, water and soil samples as well as the remains of the pipelines were collected, and the crime scene was also comprehensively documented. “We are currently evaluating all of this forensically,” [the German Public Prosecutor added.]
The official German investigation was launched in October after a preliminary probe pointed to sabotage. The initial German findings in early October suggested that the explosions were likely caused by “highly effective explosive devices” and may have been carried out by “state actors.” Western leaders and the mainstream media blamed Russia for blowing up its own multi-billion dollar pipeline.
The damage to the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which ran under the Baltic Sea, crippled Russia’s ability to supply natural gas to Germany and western Europe. Before the Ukraine war started in late February 2022, Russia accounted for almost 40 percent of Germany’s natural gas imports. The Nord Stream pipelines are joint German-Russia projects that took billions to construct. The Nord Stream 2, which was completed in the winter of 2021, alone was built at a cost of 11 billion euros.
With cheap Russian gas imports drying out, Germany and many European countries are in the midst of an energy crisis. The German government has rationed gas and power supplies, forcing cities across Germany to cut down on heating and street lighting this winter.
Germany, Europe’s largest economy, faces “de-industrialization,” media reports say. German public broadcaster ARD warned recently that “according to a study, massive surge in gas prices may lead to the de-industrialization of German and Europe.”
(Excerpts from German news reports translated by the author)
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