Denmark on Monday said it had dropped its investigation into the explosions in 2022 on the Nord Stream pipelines carrying Russian gas to Germany, becoming the second nation to do so after Sweden also closed a separate probe, Reuters reports.
The multi-billion dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas under the Baltic Sea were ruptured by a series of blasts in the Swedish and Danish economic zones in September 2022, releasing vast amounts of methane into the air.
Russia and the West, at loggerheads over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February that year, have pointed fingers at one another. Each has denied any involvement and no one has taken responsibility.
"There is not sufficient grounds to pursue a criminal case in Denmark ... and therefore the Copenhagen Police has decided to conclude the criminal investigation of the explosions," Denmark's police said in a statement.
Police added that they believe there was deliberate sabotage of the gas lines.
Sweden earlier this month dropped its investigation into the explosions saying it lacked jurisdiction in the case but had handed evidence uncovered over to German investigators, which are yet to publish any findings.
They would blame Russia even if the evidence was extremely flimsy. The fact that they haven't makes me think they know exactly who did it, but the truth is far too inconvenient for them to pursue it because they would need to basically open a criminal case against the perpetrators. How many countries have the capability and interest in attacking a NATO country's (Germany's) infrastructure, within EU waters, that no one would be willing to open a criminal case against? That's your answer.
To be honest that question has several answers. It could have been Ukraine, the US, UK, or several other NATO members (although I think one or more of the first three is most likely.)
Putin blackmailed Europe with energy, so this is kinda like shooting the hostage in a hostage standoff. Based.
I even wondered if Germany did it. Take capitulation entirely off the table. Very based.
Unlikely though. It was probably internal sabotage from Russia or Ukraine allied forces in Russia. There are devices call “pigs” used to inspect and clean pipelines. Wouldn’t be terribly hard to put an extra payload on one of those.
The cheap Russian energy was good for Europes' economy, but bad for the plans of the American military junta.
Now, with the pipeline gone, the USA is making all the money, and it has been very, very bad for Europes economy.
So, no, it was not 'probably' internal sabotage from Russia. It was more likely done by the people currently reaping insane profits selling shitty American gas to Germany.
If the EU wants the US gone they can all withdraw from NATO and take their chances. Right now they are getting very cheap to free military protection and have been for like 80 years.
Also Germany screwed itself by shutting down its nuclear fleet before its renewable/storage fleet was ready to match that supply, not to mention becoming increasingly dependent on imported gas for two decades while literally everyone (but Gazprom) told them this was idiotic. Germany's wounds are self-inflicted. They set themselves up to be completely dependent on someone for energy.
Don't worry America has lots of self-inflicted wounds too, like the second Iraq war.
The idea that Germany has the autonomy to stand up to America's military junta is just plain false. It simply doesn't have the agency as a nation state, to do so.
Germany screwed itself by allowing itself to remain a client state of the USA after WW2 and during the entire cold war, and by not wrestling control of its intelligence services away from the CIA, which still runs it today, and through which the entire political classes of the German state are subjugated.
Besides which, Energy inter-dependence between modern states is only a bad thing if you're not participating in the transaction. Obviously, the USA doesn't care about Germanys' energy dependence one bit, now that the USA is reaping billions of dollars of profit from the Germans for filthy energy supplies ..
One does have to take into account that while once very respected, over the past decade Seymour Hersh has published a series of implausible and poorly sourced claims. That doesn’t mean this theory is necessarily false, but it doesn’t add a great deal of credence to it either.
Being out of things to investigate is a reason to end investigation. It is possible to follow all leads to the end and still have no conclusive evidence.
Maybe that combined with the fact that Russia actively invaded another country for bullshit reasons means we don't want to point fingers at Russia without solid evidence, lest they use it to invent yet another bullshit reason to invade, I don't know, Sweden?
That specific reasoning is also bordering on conspiracy, but my point is that I don't think it's suspicious that countries aren't pointing fingers at Russia without solid evidence.
If you want to split hairs about exact terminology, then /reasons/casus belli/. I hope we don't disagree that their "denazification" story is bullshit.
Are the 10 biolabs that were built in Ukraine close to the border with Russia, starting in 2014 - with the explicit purpose of researching gain of function on coronaviruses and targetted genotypes as part of the CIA's PREDICT program - also bullshit, in your opinion?
Because, in spite of your opinion, its not bullshit.
What would the USA do if Mexico or Canada were suddenly sprouting up clandestine bio-warfare laboratories, funded by Russia or China, within miles of its border? What would Israel do if Iran had funded similar biolabs on its borders with Egypt or Jordan?
Who has profited the most from the Nordstream pipelines destruction?
The USA.
That's not a conspiracy, its a fact. The profits are evident and very, very real.
> bullshit reasons
What isn't bullshit is that the western military junta propagating this conflict has absolutely no problems spreading fallacies about Russia without producing any evidence whatsoever - this is a standard operating procedure for war-profiteers who seek to profit from our hatred, which they foment..
And now, with these investigations closing down, there will be no further evidence presented, and people can continue to spread false claims about who their favourite badguy is, and what they did to the pipeline .. this is probably by design.
Meanwhile, Europe has suffered economic impacts as a result of this attack on its infrastructure. Perhaps the reason European politicians are closing these investigations down so hard, is that they just don't have courage to confront the fact of their betrayal by an ally - or even worse, provide evidence of this to their voting public ...*
"Agitprop thoughtcrime victim detected." Come on, really? This is not an appropriate insult to make.
I'm not Russian and neither are you - we can therefore do nothing effective about Russia. To think otherwise is to make a claim of moral altitude which is simply an utter, dire fallacy. We are no better than Russia.
As 5-eyes citizen-subjects, we CAN do something effective about our own states massive heinous crimes against humanity, but that would require courage to have uncomfortable discussions like this, without resorting to ad hominem thought-stopping vitriol when challenged about our own personal assumptions...
The USA is a wholesale exporter of violence, funds terror across the globe, uses its intelligence services to subjugate politics across the map, and commits crimes against humanity and war crimes, on average, every twenty minutes - and has done so for twenty years. It has literally destroyed countless sovereign nations it deems inferior, invades on false premises, and does not prosecute its war criminals.
No thanks. Totally heinous. Let the Russians fix Russia, and Americans: FIX AMERICA - JAIL YOUR WAR CRIMINALS.
> The US didn't like the Nord Stream for a long-time (or any Russian gas getting bought by the EU) but couldn't get the Europeans to get along.
German here. To be fair: the US did have a point and it would have been a good idea to diversify our gas suppliers many years ago, but it's hard to compete with 4ct/kWh (and that's residential, not wholesale).
The price differential was the key driver behind our industry all but delivering themselves on a silver platter to Putin.
> The US didn't like the Nord Stream for a long-time (or any Russian gas getting bought by the EU) but couldn't get the Europeans to get along. So they dragged those guys into a war
er...no one dragged European countries in to a war, aside from Russia, who started a war.
Any of these theories would require that Nordstream 2 also be destroyed. It remains. Germany has had all this time the option to turn it back on. They have declined. They refused to certify it well before the pipeline was destroyed. There was no dragging them to that position.
I am not really sure why Europeans get consistently treated as poodles being led around with treats or being beaten with sticks in geopolitical discussions.
(besides the fact that pipe A of NS2 has also been damaged)
Why would the existence of a new, still unused but surviving pipeline be a reason to dismiss US involvement in the sabotage?
Germany is already hostile to Russia (there are people like Gerhard Schröder, but they are not part of the current political establishment), so they are going to be hesitant to make changes that would be seen as being "soft vs Russia".
It's easier to keep the status quo than to make changes that would be politically fraught (like removing sanctions).
Sabotaging NS1 was almost certainly not done with the complicity of Germany, but despite the obvious economic damage it dealt, it was convenient for people who wanted to disentangle the economic relations that Germany had with Russia: this way there wouldn't be any contract that would have to be breached.
Moreover, sabotaging this is a very credible threat that... If Germany would want to actually approve use of NS2, they could risk and see the same thing happen again.
Uh nice! I also have very reasonable explanations why it was Russia, the Ukrainians, the Chinese or Poland!
I can even go for some of the middle-eastern countries or the nefarious Danish! Should we like found a forum or something were we can trade things that come to our minds unasked?
Yeah. It has been fun to see commentators try valiantly to blame you-know-who for it, and for investigations by friendly governments mysteriously turn up nothing. We dunno who did it! It’s a real head scratcher!
46 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 87.7 ms ] threadThe multi-billion dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas under the Baltic Sea were ruptured by a series of blasts in the Swedish and Danish economic zones in September 2022, releasing vast amounts of methane into the air.
Russia and the West, at loggerheads over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February that year, have pointed fingers at one another. Each has denied any involvement and no one has taken responsibility.
"There is not sufficient grounds to pursue a criminal case in Denmark ... and therefore the Copenhagen Police has decided to conclude the criminal investigation of the explosions," Denmark's police said in a statement.
Police added that they believe there was deliberate sabotage of the gas lines.
Sweden earlier this month dropped its investigation into the explosions saying it lacked jurisdiction in the case but had handed evidence uncovered over to German investigators, which are yet to publish any findings.
https://medium.com/@dylan_combellick/hersh-fails-again-d541f...
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/41463/whatever-h...
… but you know what? if it is true… good.
Putin blackmailed Europe with energy, so this is kinda like shooting the hostage in a hostage standoff. Based.
I even wondered if Germany did it. Take capitulation entirely off the table. Very based.
Unlikely though. It was probably internal sabotage from Russia or Ukraine allied forces in Russia. There are devices call “pigs” used to inspect and clean pipelines. Wouldn’t be terribly hard to put an extra payload on one of those.
Now, with the pipeline gone, the USA is making all the money, and it has been very, very bad for Europes economy.
So, no, it was not 'probably' internal sabotage from Russia. It was more likely done by the people currently reaping insane profits selling shitty American gas to Germany.
Occams' razor. Follow the money.
Also Germany screwed itself by shutting down its nuclear fleet before its renewable/storage fleet was ready to match that supply, not to mention becoming increasingly dependent on imported gas for two decades while literally everyone (but Gazprom) told them this was idiotic. Germany's wounds are self-inflicted. They set themselves up to be completely dependent on someone for energy.
Don't worry America has lots of self-inflicted wounds too, like the second Iraq war.
Germany screwed itself by allowing itself to remain a client state of the USA after WW2 and during the entire cold war, and by not wrestling control of its intelligence services away from the CIA, which still runs it today, and through which the entire political classes of the German state are subjugated.
Besides which, Energy inter-dependence between modern states is only a bad thing if you're not participating in the transaction. Obviously, the USA doesn't care about Germanys' energy dependence one bit, now that the USA is reaping billions of dollars of profit from the Germans for filthy energy supplies ..
least deluded political commentator on HN
So they can't say who is at fault, yes. This is hardly a reason to end investigation, no?
That specific reasoning is also bordering on conspiracy, but my point is that I don't think it's suspicious that countries aren't pointing fingers at Russia without solid evidence.
That's very subjective. No one starts a war for bullshit reasons. They may sound bullshit for you but not for them.
PS: hopefully I don't have to point out that _reasons_ and "denazification" casus belli are different things.
In fact there is little to no point in discussing the casus belli part.
Because, in spite of your opinion, its not bullshit.
What would the USA do if Mexico or Canada were suddenly sprouting up clandestine bio-warfare laboratories, funded by Russia or China, within miles of its border? What would Israel do if Iran had funded similar biolabs on its borders with Egypt or Jordan?
The point is that the stated reasons are bullshit - in the sense that they are very different from the aggressor's real "reasons".
FOLLOW THE MONEY.
Who has profited the most from the Nordstream pipelines destruction?
The USA.
That's not a conspiracy, its a fact. The profits are evident and very, very real.
> bullshit reasons
What isn't bullshit is that the western military junta propagating this conflict has absolutely no problems spreading fallacies about Russia without producing any evidence whatsoever - this is a standard operating procedure for war-profiteers who seek to profit from our hatred, which they foment..
And now, with these investigations closing down, there will be no further evidence presented, and people can continue to spread false claims about who their favourite badguy is, and what they did to the pipeline .. this is probably by design.
Meanwhile, Europe has suffered economic impacts as a result of this attack on its infrastructure. Perhaps the reason European politicians are closing these investigations down so hard, is that they just don't have courage to confront the fact of their betrayal by an ally - or even worse, provide evidence of this to their voting public ...*
I'm not Russian and neither are you - we can therefore do nothing effective about Russia. To think otherwise is to make a claim of moral altitude which is simply an utter, dire fallacy. We are no better than Russia.
As 5-eyes citizen-subjects, we CAN do something effective about our own states massive heinous crimes against humanity, but that would require courage to have uncomfortable discussions like this, without resorting to ad hominem thought-stopping vitriol when challenged about our own personal assumptions...
No thanks. Totally heinous. Let the Russians fix Russia, and Americans: FIX AMERICA - JAIL YOUR WAR CRIMINALS.
German here. To be fair: the US did have a point and it would have been a good idea to diversify our gas suppliers many years ago, but it's hard to compete with 4ct/kWh (and that's residential, not wholesale).
The price differential was the key driver behind our industry all but delivering themselves on a silver platter to Putin.
er...no one dragged European countries in to a war, aside from Russia, who started a war.
Any of these theories would require that Nordstream 2 also be destroyed. It remains. Germany has had all this time the option to turn it back on. They have declined. They refused to certify it well before the pipeline was destroyed. There was no dragging them to that position.
I am not really sure why Europeans get consistently treated as poodles being led around with treats or being beaten with sticks in geopolitical discussions.
Why would the existence of a new, still unused but surviving pipeline be a reason to dismiss US involvement in the sabotage?
Germany is already hostile to Russia (there are people like Gerhard Schröder, but they are not part of the current political establishment), so they are going to be hesitant to make changes that would be seen as being "soft vs Russia".
It's easier to keep the status quo than to make changes that would be politically fraught (like removing sanctions).
Sabotaging NS1 was almost certainly not done with the complicity of Germany, but despite the obvious economic damage it dealt, it was convenient for people who wanted to disentangle the economic relations that Germany had with Russia: this way there wouldn't be any contract that would have to be breached.
Moreover, sabotaging this is a very credible threat that... If Germany would want to actually approve use of NS2, they could risk and see the same thing happen again.
I can even go for some of the middle-eastern countries or the nefarious Danish! Should we like found a forum or something were we can trade things that come to our minds unasked?
But I must admit, that the story about a bunch of Ukrainians on a boat was funny. Probably there’re still people who believed it.