DThe Swedish public prosecutor's office is closing its investigation into the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea. The public prosecutor in charge of the investigation, Mats Ljungqvist, said on Wednesday that it had been concluded that there was no Swedish jurisdiction in the case.
The comprehensive investigation found nothing to indicate that Swedes or Swedish citizens were involved in the attack in international waters, Ljungqvist said. The German investigation into the case is continuing, he emphasized.
On September 26, 2022, several explosions were registered near the Danish Baltic Sea island of Bornholm and a little later four leaks were discovered in three of the four lines of the Nord Stream pipelines. Investigations were then started in Sweden, as well as in Germany and Denmark. In November 2022, Ljungqvist confirmed the suspicion that had been harbored from the beginning that it was serious sabotage. Analyzes showed explosive residues on several foreign bodies, he explained.
In a joint letter to the UN Security Council in July 2023, the UN embassies of Germany, Denmark and Sweden wrote that investigators had discovered traces of explosives on a suspicious sailing yacht. There is a suspicion that this was used to transport the explosives used in the sabotage, the letter said. It was discovered that the boat had been rented in the name of a person who had used documents intended to conceal the identity of the real renter.
According to expert assessments, it is possible that trained divers could have planted explosive devices at the locations where the gas pipes were damaged, the letter continued. At the same time, however, it was also emphasized that the question of the perpetrator was unresolved: “At this point in time, it is not possible to reliably clarify the identity of the perpetrators and their motives, especially with regard to the question of whether the incident was caused by a state or a state actor was controlled.”
Nord Stream 1 and 2 each run as an underwater double strand over a distance of around 1,200 kilometers from Russia to Germany. Nord Stream 1 has supplied a significant proportion of the gas imported into Europe since 2011. However, in the course of the confrontation with the West after the Russian attack on Ukraine, Moscow had throttled deliveries before the destruction and then stopped them completely. The newer Nord Stream 2 pipeline was already filled with gas, but was not yet in operation due to a lack of certification.