Denmark’s military has said it photographed a number of Russian vessels near the blast site of the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage days before the explosions took place.
Evidence of the Russian ships being so close to the site of the blasts just days before the explosions, has caused fresh controversy around one of the most closely guarded investigations.
On 26 September 2022 a series of underwater explosions tore apart three of the four main Nord Stream pipes, which carry natural gas from Russia to Germany. The blasts were powerful enough to register with seismologic measuring stations. Russia and Western governments agreed the blasts were sabotage.
On 22 September a Danish naval patrol vessel, P524 Nymfen, took 112 photographs of several Russian vessels near the blast site.
Danish naval command said that 26 of the photographs were of a Russian vessel designated as SS-750, which can be equipped with a small submarine.
Investigators in Germany have focused on a sailing yacht called Andromeda and its six passengers, some of whom had Ukrainian passports.
Some analysts, however, have expressed skepticism that a sailing yacht could have caused several explosions at an underwater depth of 260 feet.
The chance that the Russian vessel captured in the photo was near the blast site without being involved in the explosion four days later, ‘is infinitely small’, said Jens Wenzel Kristoffersen, a commander at the Danish navy and an analyst at the University of Copenhagen.
‘I don’t have a smoking gun, but in my opinion, there is no doubt as to who was behind it’, he said.
Four Nordic public broadcasters have reported that at least three Russian ships able to perform underwater operations were present near the blast sites between June and September last year.