It’s about the explosives
Report reveals new details of Nord Stream 2 blast
Updated on 06/21/2023 – 18:11 Reading time: 2 min.
Expert warns: Hybrid warfare with actions like Nord Stream 2 are also increasingly threatening Germany. (Source: t-online)
So far, experts suspected that significant amounts of explosives were responsible for the explosions at Nord Stream. Research contradicts this assumption.
The damage to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is said to be less than originally thought. This is reported by ntv.de after international research by RTL, the Danish television station TV2, the Danish newspaper “Ekstra Bladet” and the French daily newspaper “Libération”. The new finding indicates that fewer explosives were used than previously assumed.
On video recordings, which are exclusively available to the research association, it can be seen that the damage to strand A of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is significantly less than that to the two strands of Nord Stream 1. The tube is only interrupted at one point, the northern part rises about five meters above the seabed, the southern part is still almost unchanged on the seabed, according to the report.
Only a few kilograms of explosives required
So far, experts had assumed that several hundred kilograms of explosives were used to destroy the gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea. “We should have found broken concrete, scratched metal, burn marks and burst pipes everywhere, which we don’t have,” Danish intelligence expert Oliver Alexander told ntv.de. He accompanied the research and further explained that based on the recordings, it looked more like a precision blast.
Other experts speak of a so-called “hollow charge” in which the effect of the explosive energy is bundled by the specific structure in such a way that only relatively little explosive has to be used. In the case of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, it was probably only a few kilograms. Such an explosive device could also be attached much more easily at a depth of 80 meters than the initially assumed several hundred kilograms of explosives.
The two Nord Stream pipelines were damaged by several explosions in the night of September 25th to 26th, 2022. To this day it is unclear who is responsible for the attacks. There are different, contradicting reports. Read more here.
