Is the Turk Stream threatened by sabotage?

US media reports that up to hundreds of pounds of TNT equivalent explosives were used to blow up the Nord Stream pipeline.

The actual destruction of Europe’s critical energy infrastructure raises more and more questions. On September 26, damages to the gas pipelines Nord Stream and Nord Stream-2 became public. The pipeline was shut down at the time of the accident – but there was a significant amount of “inert gas” left in it, which is flowing into the waters of the Baltic right now and will only run out for good by the end of this week.

Russia, represented by Russian President Vladimir Putin, on 30 September blamed the US and the UK for the undermining of the pipeline.

The Western media, in turn, accused Russia of undermining its own gas pipeline, which it had been constructing for several years in defiance of US pressure. NATO earlier said it would retaliate against suspected sabotage of the Nord Stream natural-gas pipelines.

Cui bono?

Nevertheless, numerous independent experts doubt that Russia could have been involved in the sabotage of Nord Stream. For example the Brazilian journalist and geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar states:

“Prime candidates are of course CIA and MI6 – with Poland set up as the fall guy and Denmark playing a very dodgy part: it’s impossible that Copenhagen was not at least “briefed” on the intel”.

He points out: back in February, Polish ships tried to prevent the finalization of Nord Stream 2 construction. In June, as part of the BALTOPS exercise, NATO underwater drones and combat divers were training near the island of Bornholm, where the gas pipeline was blown up.

Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson is also convinced that it was not Russia, but the US that benefited from the gas pipeline bombing:

“If you are Vladimir Putin, you would have to be a suicidal moron to blow up your own energy pipeline,” Carlson argued. “That’s the one thing you would never do.”

According to Carlson, the only interested party is the administration of US President Joe Biden. The TV host stressed that US officials had previously stated repeatedly that they would stop Nord Stream.

“If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, there will be no more Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it,” the US president said in February.

Retired US Army colonel Douglas Macgregor, a former advisor to the US Secretary of Defense, also expressed doubt that Russia had blown up its own pipeline: “Would the Russians destroy their own pipeline? 40 percent of Russian gross national product or gross domestic product consists of foreign currency that comes into the country to purchase natural gas, oil, coal and so forth. So the Russians did not do this. The notion that they did I think is absurd”.

The biggest beneficiaries of stopping Nord Stream and undermining Nord Stream 2, which never started, are the United States, Ukraine and Poland. The US is thus destroying the energy independence of Europe and, above all, of Germany by making it as dependent as possible on liquefied gas supplies from the United States. In addition, expensive energy reduces the competitiveness of European, especially German, products, forcing entire industries to “migrate” overseas.

For Poland, stopping Nord Stream is also beneficial. Poland is significantly strengthened because immediately after the explosions at Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2, Polish operator Gaz-System announced that natural gas started to be pumped through the Baltic Pipe pipeline from the Norwegian continental shelf to Poland. As of 1 October, the pumping volume is estimated at 62.4m cu.m. per day.

Because the Russian Yamal-Europe pipeline also goes through Poland, Warsaw would considerably strengthen its position in Europe, becoming one of the most important gas hubs and making Germany dependent on it. Germany will now not be able to get gas otherwise except via Poland or the Ukraine.

Ukraine also benefits from the undermining of Nord Stream. The CIA warned the Germans in summer about a possible attack scenario on the Nord Stream pipelines. U.S. intelligence claimed to have intercepted Russian communications in which concerns were expressed about possible Ukrainian attacks on Western infrastructure. The Ukrainians allegedly tried to rent a boat in Sweden for this purpose.  

Russia gains nothing from undermining its own pipeline. On the contrary, it has become dependent on pumping gas through Ukraine, a country it is now at war with. The explosion of Nord Stream took away Moscow’s most important leverage over Berlin and Brussels. Previously, Russia could blackmail Europe: it could decide whether or not to let gas in and demand concessions in return. Now Moscow cannot decide to let gas in and therefore cannot control Europe’s behavior.

The importance of gas pipelines across the Black Sea

Russia has built two routes to deliver its gas to Europe bypassing Ukraine and Poland: via the Baltic Sea (Nord Stream and Nord-2) and Blue Stream and TurkStream via the Black Sea.

Nord Stream has a capacity of 58.8 bcm/y and Nord Stream 2 has a capacity of 55 bcm/y. Blue Stream has an annual capacity of 31.5 bcm/y and Turk Stream – 31.5 bcm/y.

Türkiye depends almost entirely on gas imports from Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran.

On 4 October it was reported that pumping of Iranian gas to Türkiye had been temporarily suspended. Turkish energy company Botas said it would not be possible to send gas into the pipeline between October 2 and 9 due to scheduled inspections and maintenance of the Iran-Türkiye gas pipeline.

Russia’s Federal Security Service earlier said it had prevented a Ukrainian sabotage attack allegedly targeting infrastructure related to the TurkStream pipeline, which Ukraine denies.

If Russia’s adversaries want to weaken it as much as possible, they may decide to blow up the underwater gas pipelines to Türkiye as well. Ukraine and the supporting NATO countries have such possibilities.

TurkStream supplies gas not only to Türkiye, but also to Southern and South-Eastern Europe. In the context of the energy crisis, the pipeline is operating now at overdesigned capacity. The Hungarian Foreign Ministry called for close monitoring of TurkStream’s safety after the destruction of the Nord Stream.

On September 29, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto told to the ministers from the Organization of Turkic States in Almaty, Kazakhstan, that without an operational TurkStream, Hungary would be in big trouble.

Disrupting the gas pipelines could lead to a collapse in Hungary and the Balkans, above all in Serbia, destroying the independence of the Hungarian and Serbian regimes, which do not support the united policy of the European and US governments to prolong the war between Ukraine and Russia.

Disrupting the pipelines could also cause huge economic damage to Türkiye, which before the elections in next year could have a critical impact on the president’s ability to hold onto power. Thus, the West could hit the Turkish economy and provoke chaos to bring a pro-Western opposition to power.

In the current circumstances, the security of TurkStream and Blue Stream should be the focus of Türkiye, Hungary and the Balkan countries. Türkiye is actively trying to achieve energy independence, which is impossible without full control over the Eastern Mediterranean and protection of its legal rights to offshore development in this region. However, in the short term, it is important to maintain all existing gas supply options, despite the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.