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Briefing to the UN Security Council on the Nord Stream pipeline [excerpt]

https://www.jeffsachs.org/recorded-lectures/f4rsfnzw9rbdx2tz2n38lfgsctsbc8

The destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines required a very high degree of planning, expertise, and technological capacity. The Nord Stream 2 pipelines are a marvel of engineering (see, for example, here and here). Each section of pipe is rolled steel of 4.5 cm thickness, and with a pipeline internal diameter of 1.15 meters. The pipe is encased in concrete of 10.9 cm thickness. The weight of each section of concrete-encased pipe is 24 metric tons. The Nord Stream 2 pipelines, some 1,200 kilometers in length, contain around 200,000 pipes. The pipelines sit on the sea floor.

Destroying a pipeline of heavy rolled steel, encased in concrete, at the depth of 70-90 meters, requires highly advanced technologies for transportation of the explosives, diving to install the explosives, and detonation. To do so undetected, in the exclusive economic zones of Denmark and Sweden, adds greatly to the complexity of the operation. As a number of senior officials have confirmed, an action of this sort must have been carried out by a state-level actor.

Only a handful of state-level actors have both the technical capacity and access to the Baltic Sea to have carried out this action. These include Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, Norway, Germany, Denmark, and Sweden, either individually or in some combination. Ukraine lacks the necessary technologies, as well as access to the Baltic Sea.

A recent report by the Washington Post revealed that the intelligence agencies of the NATO countries have privately concluded that there is no evidence whatsoever that Russia carried out this action. This also comports with the fact that Russia had no obvious motive to carry out this act of terrorism on its own critical infrastructure. Indeed, Russia is likely to bear considerable expenses to repair the pipelines.

Three countries have reportedly carried out investigations of the Nord Stream terrorism: Denmark, Germany, and Sweden. These countries presumably know much about the circumstances of the terrorist attack. Sweden, in particular, has perhaps the most to tell the world about the crime scene, which its divers investigated. Yet instead of sharing this information globally, Sweden has kept the results of its investigation secret from the rest of the world. Sweden has refused to share its findings with Russia, and turned down a joint investigation with Denmark and Germany.