During the early hours of September 26, 2022, something unthinkable occurred at the Baltic
Sea.
The Nord Stream pipes that supplied over 50 percent of the natural gas to Europe directly
from Russia began pouring up to 400,000 tons of methane into the atmosphere.
Seismometers from Germany, Finland, Denmark, and other countries immediately launched an
investigation and discovered two leaks sabotaged with explosives.
An allied F-16 was immediately dispatched to discover what had occurred, but no vessels
or submarines were ever spotted.
As tensions rose between Russia and the West to assign blame, a satellite data monitoring
firm made an astonishing discovery.
With their Automatic Identification System trackers turned off, two large ships were
spotted around the leak sites before the explosions.
The ships then vanished into thin air, and it was up to satellite images to find them
and hunt them down…
Nord Stream Pipelines
The Severny Potok, or North Stream pipelines, are a pair of offshore natural gas pipelines
that run under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany.
They were named Nord Stream 1 and 2.
Nord Stream 1 or NS1 runs from Vyborg, northwestern Russia, near Finland, while NS2 originates
in Ust-Luga, close to Estonia.
The two pipelines end in Lubmin, northeastern Germany, in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.
Each of the pipelines comprises two pipes with a diameter of 1,220 millimeters and a
length of 1,200 kilometers.
NS1 and NS2 have a combined capacity of 110 billion cubic meters per year of natural gas.
The Nord Stream project began in 1997 after Russian company Gazprom and Finnish oil company
Neste partnered and created the North Transgas Oy to build and operate a gas pipeline from
Russia to Northern Germany across the Baltic.
The first pipe was finished in May 2011 and was followed by the second in October 2012.
Almost a decade later, Russia supplied nearly 50 percent of the natural gas imported by
the European Union or the EU.
Construction began in late 2011 to expand Nord Stream 2 and was completed in 2021 but
did not enter service after United States President Donald Trump mentioned that Nord
Stream 2 could turn Europe into Russia’s hostage.
Consequently, the US placed sanctions on any company assisting Russia with the pipeline.
Sabotage
In December 2020, President Joe Biden made public his stance against the opening of Nord
Stream 2 but lifted the sanctions to maintain positive relations with Europe.
During the last months of 2021, Russian military personnel began amassing at the borders of
Ukraine for what President Vladimir Putin and his ministers called a simple military
exercise between Russian forces.
Tensions rose rapidly between Ukraine, Western Europe, the United States, and Russia.
While the military buildup increased, NATO and Ukraine prepared for conflict.
In early February, President Biden warned the US would end Nord Stream if Russia invaded
Ukraine as it had done in 2014.
Finally, on February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation to take over
all of Ukraine.
The unthinkable occurred during the ensuing diplomatic disputes and Putin's threats to
stop the flow of natural gas through Nord Stream.
On September 26, 2022, significant leaks suddenly erupted in the North Stream gas pipelines.
A seismometer from the Geological Survey of Denmark in Bornholm detected two unexpected
spikes.
Over 400,000 tons of methane were poured into the atmosphere in hours.
The first wave was detected at 2:03am with a magnitude of 2.3.
The second wave was detected at 7:03pm with a magnitude of 2.1.
Other German, Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian seismometers detected the same seismic data,
and officials immediately concluded it was an act of sabotage.
The seismic data gathered was characteristic of underwater explosions, not natural events
or pipe failures.
The gas leak of North Stream 2 was then detected by a Danish F-16 aircraft response unit dispatched
to Dueodde, Bornholm.
Who Is To Blame?
European authorities immediately launched several investigations to find the perpetrators
of the gross sabotage of the pipelines.
Some independent journalists and news outlets quickly blamed Russia and Putin for sabotaging
their pipelines.
Nevertheless, they were shut down as other arguments explained that Russia had nothing
to win by destroying the only means of leverage it had to parlay with the West for the ongoing
war against Ukraine.
Furthermore, the pipelines had been built by Kremlin-controlled Gazprom and were valued
in billions of dollars.
It seemed unlikely the Russian government would do so.
Other alleged analysts pointed out the sabotage may have been conducted by Pro-Ukrainian personnel
that sought to turn all of Western Europe against Russia.
As for President Putin, he blamed the West, and especially the CIA and the US government,
for sabotage.
The Kremlin responded that allegations of Russian responsibility were nonsense, claiming
that Washington was motivated to destroy Nord Stream to sell more liquefied natural gas
to Europe.
Putin added: (QUOTE) “The sanctions were not enough for the Anglo-Saxons: they moved
onto sabotage."
Russia’s foreign ministry said that it was unthinkable that other Europeans had begun
investigations without the participation of Russia, deeming it unacceptable and shameful.
Dark Ships
While theories and investigations continued across Europe, the satellite data monitoring
firm SpaceKnow published relevant information linked to the ongoing mystery of the destruction
of the Nord Stream pipelines.
In early November 2022, Jerry Javornicky, the CEO and co-founder of SpaceKnow, took
a surprising amount of new information to the web that changed the current narrative.
The company had gathered data about two large ships spotted near the leak sites days before
the incident.
The analysis provided to WIRED showed the two large vessels, measuring between 95 to
130 meters, with their trackers off.
These two dark ships passed relatively close to the leaks of Nord Stream 2.
Javornicky stated: (QUOTE) “We have detected some dark ships, meaning vessels that were
of a significant size, that were passing through that area of interest.
They had their beacons off, meaning there was no information about their movement, and
they were trying to keep their location information and general information hidden from the world.”
SpaceKnow made the discovery by comparing and analyzing high-quality photographs taken
by different satellites.
The information obtained about the two ships was then shared with NATO, who later confirmed
it had been received and would analyze it thoroughly.
Beacons Off
SpaceKnow explained to WIRED the process employed to detect the ships.
The company gathered over 90 days of archived satellite images of areas surrounding the
leaks.
The photographs compiled came from different satellites.
Once collected, Spaceknow used 38 specific algorithms and machine learning to detect
particular objects within them, such as military and merchant vessels.
Javornicky specified that Spaceknow created a series of polygons near the leak sites.
The smallest of them was over 400 square meters and directly covered the blast area of the
Nord Stream pipes.
In total, 25 ships passed through the area in the weeks before the explosion.
From simple cargo ships to larger vessels, 23 had their AIS or Automatic Identification
System turned on.
The other two ships had turned them off, and these were precisely the two dark ships that
were last seen near before the leaks provoked by the explosives used to damage the Nord
Stream pies.
According to International Law, every large ship must be equipped with the Automatic Identification
System and have it turned on at all times.
This is mandatory to prevent collisions between vessels and help them navigate with the necessary
precautions.
AIS is a shipboard broadcast system that functions like a transponder, operating in the VHF maritime
band and capable of handling over 4,500 reports per minute.
It was created to broadcast a vessel´s name, direction of travel, location, speed, size,
and other relevant data that helps vessels avoid mishaps or help each other in case of
a disaster.
No Clear Answers
Although ships are required to have AIS turned on at all times, some go dark to commit illegal
activities, such as illegal fishing in protected areas or zones where endangered species live.
Nevertheless, there are some cases in which vessels turn off the system, as with military
ships on a classified operation.
Yet another reason for a ship to have AIS disabled could be a malfunction.
However, for two ships to go dark in the Baltic Sea, one of the zones with the largest commercial
traffic worldwide, is unusual and dangerous, to say the least.
SpaceKnow managed to detect the ships using SAR or synthetic aperture radar images acquired
directly from satellites after bouncing radio waves off the ground.
Images are created with the radio waves from SAR, which is extremely useful for detecting
ships because it shows detections from metal objects.
Additionally, SAR can also identify a ship's latitude coordinates, longitude, and speed.
SAR images shared with WIRED show the vessels as glowing objects near the explosion sites
of the Nord Stream.
Spaceknow has explicitly said that it is not making statements if the ships are Russian
or otherwise, as they lack that information and have only detected the vessels that were
spotted near the area.
For now, the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipes remains a mystery to be solved…
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