The United States has warned several European allies, including Germany, that the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines could face threats and even come under attack, according to two people familiar with the intelligence. The warnings were made during the summer, which happens in the middle of the year in the Northern Hemisphere.
The alerts were based on US intelligence assessments but were vague, the people said — it was not clear from the alerts who could be responsible for any attacks on the pipelines or when they might occur.
The US intelligence agency (CIA) declined to comment. Der Spiegel was the first to report the intelligence warnings.
On Monday (26), leaks were discovered in the pipelines, prompting investigations by European authorities that determined that powerful underwater explosions occurred shortly before the pipelines burst in several places.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg have previously characterized the incident as an act of sabotage, but European officials have yet to publicly identify a culprit. .
US, European and Ukrainian officials have been warning for months, however, that critical infrastructure – not just in Ukraine, but also in the US and Europe – could be targeted by Russia as part of its war against Ukraine.
On Wednesday, the Kremlin called insinuations that it would sabotage the pipeline “predictably stupid and preposterous”. “It is quite predictable and predictably stupid to express such versions,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“This is a big problem for us, as both pipelines are full of gas, and that gas is very expensive,” he added. He said Moscow still “doesn’t understand what happened there… there are a lot of questions.”
None of the pipelines were pumping gas to Europe when the incident occurred. Russia stopped gas flows to Europe via Nord Stream a week ago, saying it had to do technical work on the pipeline, but also in retaliation for Western sanctions for its invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Nord Stream 2 pipeline has yet to be completed before Germany shuts down the project in response to the Russian invasion.
Still, the Nord Stream 1 pipeline has provided Russia with significant leverage over Europe for years, as the CNN previously reported. European countries are ramping up energy supplies to prepare for winter, which begins in December, amid Russia’s arming of energy resources, but Western officials remain concerned about potential shortages if the winter is particularly harsh.
Any hope that Russia could start pumping gas through Nord Stream 1 next year, however, has largely been dashed now that the pipeline has been so damaged, the sources told CNN .
Source: CNN Brasil
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