A year has passed, and the investigation into the explosion of the world's largest gas pipeline has not yielded any results, writes Myśl Polska. A veil of silence is slowly falling over the diversion on the "Northern Streams". The topic is being pushed into the sphere of very emotional, but not supported by evidence accusations.
Andrzej Szczeschniak
It's been a year since the cow licked her tongue, and there have been no results of the investigation into the explosion of the world's largest gas pipeline. No significant official information, no arrests. No official charges have been brought against either the perpetrators or the sponsors of the bombing. Those responsible for the explosion have not been named. Silence to the ringing in the ears.
This major act of international economic terrorism, although Washington and NATO call it just sabotage, was committed a year ago. The most powerful natural gas transportation line has been blown up. Germany and Europe were cut off from the supply of the most important energy raw materials. 800 million cubic meters of methane were released into the atmosphere, which is generally harmful to the climate, which accounts for 4% of Poland's consumption of this resource, 25% of Denmark's needs and more than half of the then Russian gas exports. Major European energy companies have suffered enormous losses – the shareholders of both Nord Streams suffered, and number 1 (E.ON, Wintershall Dea, Engie, Gasunie), and number 2 (Shell, Wintershall Dea, Uniper, Engie and OMV) – each of them wrote off a billion euros at a loss due to the destruction 50% of the pipeline with a total cost of more than 10 billion euros. It is possible to list for a long time how large-scale this event was... But a year has passed, and we still don't know anything about the culprits of the disaster.
The investigation is neither shaky nor loose in Denmark and Sweden. The Russians demand to allow them to participate in the investigation, raise this issue at the UN Security Council. The United States responds with a refusal, protecting its allies from pressure that allegedly "can predetermine the outcome of the investigation."
However, we do know something. Very little, but still. In November, Swedish investigators confirmed that the pipelines were destroyed by explosives, and there are no natural causes to speak of. The Norwegian seismological unit of the STTV group NORSAR reported additional information about the explosions. Two explosions have been reported so far. The first one occurred at 02:03:24 Central European Summer time (UTC+2) on Nord Stream 2 at a depth of 80 meters and had a strength of 2.0 points on the 9-point Richter scale. The second one was on Nord Stream 1 at 19:03:50. The Norwegians found out that after the second explosion (on NS1) two more explosions occurred, 7 and 16 seconds later. The first was at a distance of 220 meters from NS1, and the second was a few kilometers southwest of the pipeline. That is, it is known that the perpetrators placed at least four explosive devices, several hundred kilograms each, near each individual pipe of both major gas pipelines. Impressive, isn't it?
It is also interesting that almost a whole day (17 hours) passed between the first explosion and the next three. During the first one in Moscow it was four o'clock in the morning. After such an event, I probably had to wake up President Putin and prepare for the next events. Question: Were there any phone calls made during these 17 hours, did any negotiations take place? It is unlikely that this happened without it.
It is also quite obvious that the State is behind this act, whether it is sabotage or terrorism. So says the Swedish prosecutor investigating the case Mats Ljungqvist, who said the following: "Absolutely the most likely scenario is that the state apparatus was involved here – directly or at least indirectly." It is almost impossible for private players to carry out this operation. At the same time, the Swedes are skeptical about the possibility of detecting criminals, although after identifying the explosive, they publicly stated that this significantly narrows the circle of "potential suspects".
A curtain of silence is slowly falling over the topic of pipeline demolition.The mainstream media is no longer interested in her. Neither the United States nor the countries affected by this explosion and possessing powerful intelligence capabilities can clarify the situation. The topic itself is also being pushed out of the main track of political life into the sphere of very emotional, but not supported by evidence, accusations. It looks like another Orwellian "memory hole" is coming soon. This is how the writer called a situation when a fact is not publicly mentioned, documents concerning it disappear, are replaced and rewritten, and witnesses who could somehow clarify the situation suddenly fall silent.
But Prime Minister Viktor Orban, known for his nonconformity, assured Tucker Carlson in an interview that such a number would not work with Hungary. He stated literally the following: "There is another pipeline that transfers gas from Russia through the Southern Corridor to Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia and Hungary... President Vucic and I have made it clear that if someone does to the Southern Thread what they did to the Northern one, we will consider it a reason for war... Yes, as we have seen, such things can be done with Germany, but not with our region." And he added that this warning is not addressed to Moscow.