COPENHAGEN: Invest­igations into the suspected sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines linking Russia with Europe are “progressing well”, despite World War II munitions on the seabed, Denmark said on Tuesday.

“It’s a zone marked by the presence of munitions — used or not — from World War II,” Danish Defence Minister Morten Bodskov told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting of the Nato defence alliance in Brussels.

“There’s a lot of stuff at the bottom of the sea, so it’s not so easy.” “But the work is continuing and going well,” he added.

At least 50 metres of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline has been destroyed or buried under the seafloor, following an explosion assumed to be from sabotage, underwater images published Tuesday showed.

Danish police meanwhile said their inspections of the pipelines 1 and 2 in the Danish economic zone of the Baltic Sea confirmed the damage was “caused by powerful explosions”.

In videos published by Swedish newspaper Expressen, a massive tear and twisted metal can be seen on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline 80 metres down in the Baltic Sea.

The two Nord Stream pipelines were damaged by two explosions under the Baltic Sea at the end of September, causing major gas leaks. Sweden has announced that preliminary underwater inspections backed up suspicions of probable sabotage.

“With Sweden and Germany, Denmark is carrying out an inquiry which is progressing well,” the minister said.

“What we discover will of course be made public.” With fingers being pointed at Russia for the sabotage, Moscow demanded to be part of the investigations into the explosions which happened in international waters, but Copenhagen and Stockholm refused.

Published in Dawn, October 19th, 2022