Sweden Opts Out of Joint Probe Into Nord Stream Leaks, Declines to Share Findings, Citing National Security

Gas emanating from a leak on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea on Sept. 27, 2022. Swedish Coast Guard via Getty Images

Sweden has opted out of a proposal to set up a formal joint investigation team with Denmark and Germany to investigate the recent leaks of the Russian-owned pipelines Nord Stream 1 and 2.

Mats Ljungqvist, the Swedish prosecutor involved in the country’s criminal investigation of the leaks in the Swedish economic zone, told Reuters that the country wouldn’t join a joint investigative team from the judicial cooperation agency Eurojust.

According to Eurojust, a joint team is “one of the most advanced tools used in international cooperation in criminal matters, comprising a legal agreement between competent authorities of two or more States for the purpose of carrying out criminal investigations.” Such teams are established for a fixed period that’s typically 12 to 24 months.

Doing so would mean that Sweden would have to share confidential information from its Nord Stream probe that has been withheld. Ljungqvist told Reuters that the information subject to confidentiality is “directly linked to national security.”

Ljungqvist’s remarks come after German news website Der Spiegel reported a similar situation, citing unnamed German security sources. It said that Sweden had rejected the idea of sharing information with Germany and Denmark, saying that “the confidentiality level of the results of its investigation was too high to share them with other states.”

Ljungqvist noted that outside of the proposed formal investigation team, Sweden had otherwise been cooperating with Denmark and Germany in investigating the Nord Stream leak.

Per Reuters, a Swedish Security Services spokesperson said the security police were cooperating closely with other authorities, also internationally, as part of the Swedish criminal investigation.

A German Interior Ministry spokesperson told reporters on Oct. 14 that the German Federal Police have completed their part of investigating the alleged sabotage on the pipelines and handed over their findings.

Days earlier, on Oct. 11, Sweden’s outgoing Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said that the country can’t share information about its investigation of the Nord Stream leaks with Russia.

“In Sweden, there is secrecy around the preliminary investigation and that also applies in this case,” she said, The Associated Press reported.

Before that, the Swedish Security Service had announced on Oct. 6 that, based on its preliminary investigation, leaks from the Nord Stream pipelines were likely caused by “serious sabotage” and that “detonations” likely caused the leaks.

4 Leaks

A total of four leaks were detected on the Nord Stream pipelines—two on Nord Stream 1 and two on Nord Stream 2—in late September, sparking widespread suspicion and concern, including from NATO, of sabotage. While both Nord Stream pipelines, which travel through the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, weren’t in operation, both were filled with gas that leaked to the surface of the water. Nord Stream 1 had recently stopped supplying gas and Nord Stream 2 never began operating.

The fourth leak, off southern Sweden, was reported by the Swedish coast guard on Sept. 29. The earlier three leaks were reported on Sept. 26. Nord Stream AG, the operator of the network, issued a statement that flagged the close timing of the three leaks. It told reporters, “The destruction that occurred on the same day simultaneously on three strings of the offshore gas pipelines of the Nord Stream system is unprecedented.”

Prior to reports late last month about the three leaks, explosions were recorded along the Nord Stream pipelines. A first explosion was recorded by seismologists southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm. A second, stronger blast northeast of the island that night was equivalent to a magnitude-2.3 earthquake. Seismic stations in Denmark, Norway, and Finland also registered the explosions.

The chief of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service told the Russian TASS news agency on Oct. 14 that the agency had intelligence data related to sabotage at the two pipelines, but didn’t elaborate.

Nord Stream 1 had been the main source of Russian gas to Europe until late Aug. 19, when Russian state-owned oil and gas firm Gazprom shut off the gas for maintenance. In early September, Gazprom announced it had abandoned plans to restart gas flows through the pipeline to Germany indefinitely, saying that an oil leak in a critical turbine wasn’t yet fixed. Russia has blamed international sanctions over the war in Ukraine for deterring the pipeline’s routine maintenance.

Meanwhile, Nord Stream 2 never came into operation. Germany in February halted the certification of the gas pipeline shortly prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At the time, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the refusal to certify the pipeline was in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recognition of the independence of two Russian-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.