Kyiv, Ukraine – The 2022 destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, whose construction cost $19bn, epitomised the failure of “change through trade”, Berlin’s policy of softening Moscow’s hardline leadership through mercantile ties, according to some analysts. Pressurised gas was pumped from Yamal, Russia’s Arctic peninsula of deer herders and treeless tundra, to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany’s Baltic region of chalk cliffs and medieval castles. But on September 26, 2022, several underwater blasts created a kilometre-wide (0.6-mile) bubbling geyser of natural gas that became history’s worst release of methane and screeched the pipeline flows to a halt.
Dubbed an act of sabotage, the apparent operation has drawn the attention of Hollywood director Doug Liman, known for blockbusters such as The Bourne Identity and Mr & Mrs Smith. Oscar-winning actors Sean Penn and Adrien Brody star in Liman’s upcoming drama, titled Snake Island, about Ukrainian divers who plunge into the Baltic’s blue waters from a sleek rented yacht to blow up the world’s longest undersea pipelines. Back in the real world, one of the suspected divers, Volodymyr Zhuravlev, a 46-year-old father of three with more than two decades of free-diving experience, was a consultant on Liman’s film set in Croatia.
He was arrested in the Croatian city of Pula on August 19 and is to be extradited to Germany. Last year, another accused member of the sabotage team, Serhii Kuznetsov, was arrested in Italy and extradited to Germany. The 49-year-old reportedly worked for Ukrainian intelligence and complained that he had been “abandoned by his country and president”.
Their arrests and upcoming trials have highlighted how the sabotage shocked Germany’s economy, overhauled its energy exports and consumption – and still affects ties between Berlin and Kyiv. The pipelines were designed to deliver 110 billion cubic metres (3.9 trillion cubic ft) of natural gas a year and made Germany “captive to Russia”, United States President Donald Trump said in 2022. Nord Stream 2 never became operational but did contain pressurised gas at the time of the explosions.
Nord Stream 1 along with other Russian pipelines provided 55 percent of Germany’s natural gas. It heated homes, generated energy and fuelled the economic pillars of Europe’s largest, export-oriented economy, the chemical and steelmaking industries. The alleged sabotage “changed the debate on energy security fundamentally”, Kemfert said.
The latter proved to be a silver lining. Meanwhile, the unresolved questions surrounding Nord Stream “remain politically sensitive” in Berlin-Kyiv ties, she said. After Trump removed Washington from the political chessboard of the Russia-Ukraine war, Berlin became Kyiv’s largest and staunchest Western backer.
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