Sweden, Denmark, and Germany will now all carry out independent investigations of the explosions which damaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, according to a report in the news portal Tagesschau, owned by ARD media.
The report stated that originally, the three nations, “actually wanted to investigate the destruction of the pipelines together and to find out who is responsible. But that’s not the case now.”
The three nations had initially formed a joint investigation team. According to a report in Reuters, Sweden was the first nation to withdraw from the team, with a Swedish prosecutor noting, “This is because there is information in our investigation that is subject to confidentiality directly linked to national security.”
Later Denmark withdrew, and according to the latest report, “Now each country will conduct its investigation separately from the others.” At all times, during this process, it was made clear none of the involved nations would allow Russia access to the investigation. On Monday, Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson had expressly stated that Stockholm would not share its results with Moscow.
Russia’s foreign ministry had summoned the ambassadors of Germany, Denmark and Sweden on Thursday to register complaints against its exclusion. Russia noted it would not recognize any findings of the probe if it is excluded, if its experts were not allowed equal access to investigatory materials.
Moscow added that if all the involved countries continue to ignore its calls for inclusion, it would assume it is because they, “have something to hide or [that] they are covering up the perpetrators of these terrorist attacks.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that regardless of whether or not his nation was given access to the probe, “we all know well who the ultimate beneficiary of this crime is.” Russia maintains America blew up the pipeline to prevent Germany from choosing to abandon Western sanctions against Russia in the event of a gas shortage in the winter, in return for acquiring cheap Russian gas to heat homes and power electrical plants.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had spoken of the damaged pipelines as a “tremendous opportunity” for Europe “to once and for all remove dependence on Russian energy.”
