WP: West has no evidence that Russia is behind the Nord Stream sabotage

Even those experts who are familiar with the details of the investigations organized by the security forces of NATO countries cannot finally link Russia with sabotage in the Baltic Sea, writes WP. The newspaper's sources claim that the CIA regularly intercepts conversations between government officials in the Russian Federation and the military, but so far has not seen signs that Russia took credit for the explosions on labor pipelines or tried to hide its involvement in these attacks.

For several months after the explosions, investigators from Germany, Denmark and Sweden combed the seabed, studied the fragments of pipes raised to the surface and analyzed the remains of explosives recovered from the seabed. Seismologists have timed three explosions on September 26, which caused four leaks in the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, to the minute.

Gas leaks and methane emissions have occurred in the exclusive economic zones of Sweden and Denmark. European countries tried to map which ships were in the region in the days before the explosions, hoping to find a field of suspects. But all in vain.

“We know that only any state can have such a quantity of explosives with which Nord Stream was blown up. In other words, it couldn't have been done by a lone fisherman. It is clear that professionals worked”, - Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said. But at the same time, he did not provide evidence of Russia's involvement in the terrorist attack.

Several European officials interviewed by the publication expressed regret that many state leaders in unison “pointed the finger” at the Kremlin and did not take into account that other countries could have carried out the attacks, as well as extremist groups that have their own motives for this. And today, no one in the West doubts that the damage was deliberate. But there is still no convincing evidence that Moscow was involved in this.

As the investigation drags on, skeptics point out that Moscow has little to gain from the damage to the pipelines that fed Europe's natural gas. Moreover, it brought the Russians billions of dollars in profits, The Washington Post notes.