Sweden unwilling to share Nord Stream investigation findings

By Trend

Sweden rejected the idea of sharing its findings from the investigation into the incidents on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines with Germany and Denmark, referring to its high security classification level, Der Spiegel reported on Friday citing sources, Trend reports citing TASS.

The weekly said that Sweden declined to establish an international joint investigation team to look into the incidents on the Nord Stream system. According to the magazine, Sweden justified its refusal by claiming "the confidentiality level of the results of its investigation was too high to share them with other states."

However, as Der Spiegel points out, Sweden had not initially commented on the issue. Speaking about Sweden’s refusal, Berlin said that it still hopes for cooperation with local authorities. Primarily, the German investigators need to assess images of the German army’s Sea Cat underwater drone, which reportedly shows a larger crater, indicating a powerful explosion.

Moreover, most of the pipeline had been smashed and the current might have washed some parts of the pipe away after the incident. The weekly says that the German authorities believe after conducting an initial analysis that an explosive device equivalent to 500 kilos of TNT might have been used for the blast.

Earlier in the day, Germany’s ARD television channel reported citing sources in the German government that Germany, Sweden and Denmark gave up plans to jointly investigate the sabotage at the Nord Stream pipelines and will do it separately instead. A German Interior Ministry spokesperson told reporters that the German Federal Police had completed investigative activities on the scene.

The WDR and NDR public broadcasters reported that the German Federal Police, alongside the German Navy, began investigating the sabotage on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines on October 7. On the same day, two German vessels set sail towards the Danish island of Bornholm carrying divers to document the damage to the pipes.

Four leaks were discovered on the Nord Stream gas link, with the most recent one pinpointed by Sweden’s coast guard. Earlier, the Nord Stream AG company reported that three threads of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 offshore gas pipelines had suffered unprecedented damage on September 26. Swedish seismologists later revealed that two explosions had been recorded along the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26. After that, investigators of the FSB of Russia opened a criminal case on an act of international terrorism in connection with the explosions.