Sweden, Nord Stream | Sweden has blocked off the area with gas leaks
According to the coast guard, the decision was implemented on Monday afternoon. The blockade involves the coastguard, with support from the Swedish defence, being able to prevent vessels from entering the area.
– The ban involves a ban on driving over, anchoring, diving, fishing, driving watercraft or carrying out geophysical mapping, the coast guard wrote in a press release.
The blockade applies to an area with a diameter of 5 nautical miles, that will be just over 9 kilometers.
– It is not possible to set up barrier tape on the sea, but we make it clear to all shipping that a type of work is going on here that must be done undisturbed now, says the coastguard’s spokesperson Mattias Lindholm.
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– Intensive phase
The prosecutor’s office will not give any details about the blockade, but says it is being implemented to be able to proceed with the investigation of “gross sabotage”.
– The investigation continues, we are in an intensive phase. We have good cooperation with several authorities in the matter. I understand the great public interest, but we are at the beginning of an investigation, and I cannot therefore go into details about which investigative measures we are implementing, says state attorney Mats Ljungqvist in a press release on Monday evening.
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Fire leaks
On Monday last week, the alarm went off after leaks were discovered on both Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 outside the Danish island of Bornholm. In total, there are leaks in four places on the pipelines, which are built to transport gas from Russia to Germany. Two of the leaks are in Sweden’s economic zone, while the other two are in Denmark’s economic zone. The area is also international waters.
According to the Swedish Coast Guard, you can no longer see that gas is coming out of the leak on Nord Stream 1, but on Monday afternoon the leak on Nord Stream 2 still led to bubbles on the water surface.
Neither pipeline has been operating in recent weeks, but both contained large amounts of stagnant gas. Both Russia and the US have denied that they are behind it.
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Small emissions search
Earlier on Monday, a small increase in the discharge from Nord Stream 2 was observed, but without the Swedish coastguard being able to say what the cause was.
The Danish Energy Agency says that small amounts of gas will be forced out as the pipes are filled with water and that this probably explains the small increase the Swedish Coast Guard registered on Monday morning.
A large Swedish ship with sonar equipment on board has been sent to the area.
The Swedish navy’s largest ship, the submarine rescue ship Belos, has also sailed to the area, according to Jyllands-Posten. The newspaper writes that the ship has equipment that can illuminate the damage to the pipelines.
Belos has, among other things, a crane and underwater vessels with camera and sonar equipment on board.
The Danish navy is also heavily present in the area. The frigates Absalon and Esbern Snare are in the waters around Bornholm.
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Offer of Norwegian aid
During a meeting of the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF), Norway has offered to assist Sweden, Denmark and Germany in the investigation of the Nord Stream sabotage.
This is what the Ministry of Defense writes in a press release on Monday evening.
– We take the largest relationship in the Baltic Sea seriously and will of course assist the investigation that Sweden, Denmark and Germany must carry out if necessary, says State Secretary Bent-Joacim Bentzen.