“Evidence of sabotage to Finnish gas pipeline will provoke determined response from NATO”, recovery will take at least five months | Abroad

An unexpected loss of pressure occurred in the subsea pipeline in the Baltic Sea on Saturday night. Both Finland and Estonia immediately started investigations. “It is likely that the damage to the gas pipeline and telecom cable is the result of outside activity,” Finnish President Sauli Niinistö said.

Estonian Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur agreed. According to Pevkur, the damage was caused by a “quite heavy force.” “One thing is clear, this was not caused by nature.”

The defense ministers of the 31 NATO countries will discuss the incident, Stoltenberg said before the meeting on Wednesday at the headquarters of the Western military alliance in Brussels, according to business news agency ‘Bloomberg’.

“The most important thing now is to determine what happened and how this could have happened,” Stoltenberg explained to reporters. “If this is proven to be a deliberate attack on NATO’s critical infrastructure, it will not only be considered a serious matter, but will also be met with a united and determined response from NATO.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the report of the damage to the pipeline “disturbing news” and added that the Kremlin is waiting for further details. He also said the explosions that damaged the nearby Nord Stream pipeline almost a year ago had set “dangerous precedents” in the Baltic Sea.

For her part, Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said she did not rule out Russia’s involvement in an interview with a local news channel. If proven, NATO could start ‘Article 4 consultations’. This is a clause that provides for consultations between the members of the alliance if the security of one of the member states is threatened.

Finland recorded a small seismic event at the time the pipeline was damaged, said Jari Kortstrom, a seismologist at the University of Helsinki. “The magnitude is so small that a few kilograms of TNT could be enough to cause such an explosion, but it is not certain that the event was caused by an explosion,” he said.

However, the Finnish police unit conducting the investigation said on Wednesday that the damage appeared to have been caused by a “mechanical force, and not by an explosion.” Risto Lohi, a representative of the National Bureau of Investigation, did not provide further details. “No hypothesis is excluded.”

Finland is securing critical infrastructure and increasing vigilance, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said.

In addition to the leak in the undersea gas pipeline, clear damage was also found to a data cable. Because that cable is in Estonian waters, Estonian authorities are leading that investigation.

Norway, a major supplier of gas to Europe, said on Tuesday that the country will maintain increased safety levels on gas infrastructure introduced in spring 2022.

Lithuania will expand security zones around the natural gas facilities where its ships patrol, Energy Minister Dainius Kreivys said on Wednesday. “We are constantly receiving information about Russian ships – alleged scientific ships – roaming around the energy infrastructure located in the Baltic Sea and in the North Sea,” he said after a meeting devoted to the security of strategic facilities.

Since the explosions at Nord Stream, NATO has stepped up its maritime patrols in the North Sea and is working to develop new technologies – including undersea drones – that can help detect suspicious activity on undersea infrastructure in real time.

Due to the problems with the gas pipeline, the European gas price has risen again. On Tuesday the price rose to more than 49 euros per megawatt hour, but on Wednesday there was a drop of 5.9 percent to around 46.5 euros. Last Friday, the gas price of the leading Dutch TTF market entered the weekend at a rate of 38.2 euros.