The government of Finland has just revealed that its gas pipeline to Estonia has been destroyed in a “deliberate” act of sabotage.
The allegation has come months after famed Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh alleged that the U.S. blew up the Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea in September 2022.
Hersh reported that the pipeline was destroyed during a covert operation under the guise of the BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise.
Now another undersea gas pipeline connecting Finland and Estonia has allegedly come under attack.
In the early hours of Sunday, the Finnish and Estonian gas system operators, Gasgrid Finland and Elering, detected an “unusual” leak in the 77-kilometer (48-mile) interconnector.
“Based on observations, it was suspected that the offshore pipeline between Finland and Estonia was leaking,” Gasgrid Finland said in a statement.
“The valves in the offshore pipeline are now closed and the leak is thus stopped.”
ERR News reported that the Estonian Navy started surveying the pipeline with its equipment on Monday.
Meanwhile, the Finnish Security and Intelligence Service has also been involved in the investigation.
The Finnish operator gave no reason for the suspected leak on Monday.
However, Finnish officials, one day later, have now said their investigation of the leak will be on the premise of sabotage.
“Swedish public radio separately reported that the pipeline had been damaged and that the damage did not occur naturally, citing Finnish government sources,” Reuters reported Tuesday.
In early 2023, journalist Hersh published a bombshell report as his first Substack post.
He claimed that the U.S. blew up the Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline as part of a covert operation under the guise of the BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise.
Last month, on the first anniversary of the bombing, he posted an article titled “A Year of Lying About Nord Stream, deals with motive. What was the United States’ motive?”
Hersh states that his sources told him:
Biden administration blew up the pipelines but the action had little to do with winning or stopping the war in Ukraine.
It resulted from fears in the White House that Germany would waver and turn on the flow of Russia gas—and that Germany and then NATO, for economic reasons, would fall under the sway of Russia and its extensive and inexpensive natural resources.
And thus followed the ultimate fear: that America would lose its long-standing primacy in Western Europe.
The damaged Finland and Estonia undersea pipeline is eerily reminiscent of the Russia-to-Germany pipeline sabotage.
Bloomberg stated: “Finland must rely fully on its floating LNG terminals for supply, while Estonia began receiving piped gas from Latvia.”
News of the leak sent U.S. and E.U. NatGas prices soaring higher.
While there are no conclusions about the leak in the Baltic, it comes as the Northern Hemisphere winter is just months away.
The good news is the EU’s NatGas storage is well above normal levels for this time of year.
The latest data from the Energy Information Administration shows the US exported more LNG in the first half of the year than any other country in the world.
Much of the LNG exports ended up in Europe.
