Introduction to translation

The Russian war on Ukraine has reached a sensitive stage with the advent of winter, which brings with it the increasing sensitivity of Europe to the lack of gas supplies.

In this context, Elizabeth Brau, a senior researcher at the American Project Institute for Public Policy Research, prepared an analysis published by the American "Defense One" website, in which she dealt with the recent explosions that struck the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines, which transport Russian gas to Europe, and the researcher suggested that Russia may be involved in the aggression, which falls under the "gray war", that is, those non-military attacks that do not call for self-defense, and therefore cannot be deterred or combated by military means.

translation text

On September 27, according to local time, the Danish Armed Forces published pictures of leaks in the Baltic Sea.

These leaks were not unusual: the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines were leaking gas in the Baltic Sea. The day before, Danish and Swedish government agencies recorded mysterious explosions under the sea. It is now clear that Russia is sabotaging the pipelines. The gas pipelines themselves, as they will cause longer-term damage to their neighbors on the Baltic Sea, who are already suffering severe damage to their marine environment.Sabotaging gas pipelines is not considered a military aggression, while causing environmental damage is a deception under the concept of "gray aggression." As with all attacks of this kind, it is extremely difficult to respond to it militarily.

The first signs of the problem appeared at approximately 2 am, local time on Monday, when the marine seismographs of the Swedish Naval Command and the Danish Naval Authorities recorded mysterious explosions under the sea.

About 12 hours later, the crew of one of the ships reported visible leaks on the surface of the water.

Then, around 7 p.m., the monitors picked up more explosions, and more than an hour later, more reports of leaks arrived.

It turned out that the explosions and leaks were in the same area.

(Reuters)

Albumin experts and Scandinavian political leaders already agree that the explosions were intentional.

Who did it then?

Theoretically, they may be terrorists or other political extremists, but such people lack the technical expertise to plan such sabotage, and there is no clear reason why they would put so much effort and time into a low-profit sabotage operation.

In fact, the finger is pointing at the Russian government.

With European countries cutting Russian gas imports, the pipelines were not fully used anyway (Germany refused to certify the Nord Stream 2 pipeline).

In addition, Moscow is making desperate attempts to intimidate the West. On several occasions during the month of September, high-ranking Russian officials, right up to Vladimir Putin, waved a nuclear weapon in an attempt to scare Western governments into ending their military aid to Ukraine. But that didn't work, and Russia appears to be testing a new strategy: covertly damage the Baltic Sea, a tiny and already very polluted sea.

In addition to the damage caused by merchant ships, pollution has long flowed from the Kaliningrad province.

(The province of the Russian Federation, located between Poland and Lithuania)*, where for years that Russian enclave pumped its sewage water into the sea, despite the appeals of Russia's neighbors bordering the Baltic Sea.

In 2016, a sewer network built jointly with the Swedish International Development Agency came into service, but most ecological hotspots in the Baltic Sea remain off the coasts of Kaliningrad and St Petersburg.

Now, things have only gotten worse with the gas leak. Jako Hintonen, a Finnish marine environment expert who has been involved for years in the Baltic states’ efforts to clean up their oceans, noted: “Methane, the gas mainly in Nord Stream pipelines, is a stronger causative agent. The pollution from carbon dioxide is about 29 times, and according to the reports circulating so far, the size of the leak is enormous.”

Methane pollutes the air much more than water, and by releasing such a dangerous gas, Moscow appears to be signaling that it can harm not only its neighbors, but the rest of the world as well.

Moreover, as Hintonen told me, “a gas leak could cause an explosion, so any navigation in the vicinity of the affected area should be prohibited,” which could pose a problem for any clean-up crews that the Baltic states might quickly set up.

Destroying another country's environment is an easy and inexpensive feat that can often be done without jeopardizing the implementing country's environment.

Because most of Russia's coastline lies far from the Baltic Sea, it would not suffer much if the Baltic Sea were to be ecologically destroyed.

Likewise, the Chinese fishing fleet travels great distances in the world's oceans, and anchors its ships in the exclusive economic zones of other countries - where the local fishermen make their living - casting its huge nets until the seas empty their stomachs to the fullest, and then the army of ships sails away, not satisfied with exhaustion Not only fishery resources, but also damage to the seabed.

Off the coast of Taiwan's Matsu Islands, Chinese rigs have been digging sand for years, a practice that has left the Taiwanese government a constant headache, and Taiwan has been forced to invest in a massive coastguard fleet.

So far, the Nord Stream 1 and 2 leaks are not a huge environmental disaster, like the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, when about 42,000 cubic meters of oil spilled into Alaskan waters, but the recent leaks will cause Environmental damage that would force Sweden, Denmark, and any other Baltic country to do their utmost to remedy it, if they had the capacity to do so. Like overfishing in other countries' waters, causing gas leaks in another country's waters is not as tragic as a military assault Because it is not a military aggression, it is theoretically impossible to take self-defense measures against it, countries will not send fishing fleets long distances towards Chinese waters to teach China a deterrent lesson on its overfishing, nor will they blow up any pipelines Its subsidiaries are located - perhaps - near Russian waters.

Realistically, doing environmental damage is a clever business, but it is nonetheless a very insidious gray assault.

And because political systems like those in Russia and China — not to mention North Korea and Belarus — are so pernicious, we can expect more of these incidents, and thus more holes, in Nord Stream 1 and 2.

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Translation: Hadeer Abdul Azim

This report is translated from Defense One and does not necessarily reflect the website of Medan.