At least 50 meters of Nord Stream 1 will have been destroyed by the end of September, during the alleged sabotage that affected the pipeline. EITHER Swedish newspaper Expressen publishedthis Tuesday, images of a hole in the equipment in which shattered pieces of metal can be seen.
The images were captured on Monday at a depth of about 80 meters by an underwater drone and show one of the four points where gas leaks occurred, the Swedes explain.
The pilot of the Norwegian Blue Eye Robotics drone, responsible for the drone, guarantees that “only extreme force could twist such a thick metal” and adds that it is possible to see, at the bottom of the sea, the “great impact” of what would have been an explosion.
The Danish police confirmed in a preliminary report that the damage to the pipeline was due to “strong explosions” – hypotheses that the Swedish authorities had already raised – but did not say who was responsible.
According to the Swedish Coast Guard, quoted by AFP, it was only on Friday that the last gas leak was no longer visible on the surface of the Baltic Sea.
The Kremlin, led by spokesman Dmitri Peskov, argues that the investigation is being “rigged” to blame Russia for the explosions, which it considers “absurd” because “Russia would not blow up its own gas pipeline.”
Moscow accuses Western countries of being behind the explosions that caused the leak of the two gas pipelines, which were not in operation at the time of the incidents, but still contained gas.
“We can only regret that the entire investigation is being carried out in a very, very small group (…) without the participation of Russia, which is a co-owner of the gas pipeline,” Peskov lamented. Russia has opened its own investigation into the incident and, although they cannot go to investigate, Peskov assures that Russian officials are “doing their job”.
The leaks were detected at the end of September.
Source: TSF
