DENMARK gave up on an investigation into the explosions that in 2022 ruptured the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines just outside its territorial waters, following a similar decision in neighbouring Sweden earlier this month.

Danish authorities concluded there was “deliberate sabotage of the gas pipelines” in September 2022, but found no “sufficient grounds to pursue a criminal case,” the Copenhagen police and the Danish intelligence service said in a joint statement on Monday (Feb 26).

The decision followed an investigation that was “both complex and comprehensive,” and which involved cooperating with “relevant foreign partners,” they said.

The undersea link to Germany via the Baltic Sea was the main route for Russian pipeline gas flows before the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. The explosions damaged both strings of the Nord Stream one pipeline as well as one of two strings of Nord Stream two in the waters near the island of Bornholm in Eastern Denmark.

At peak capacity, Nord Stream one delivered 55 billion cubic metres of natural gas annually. The second pipeline was set to double capacity but never entered service.

Commenting on the Danish decision on Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called the situation “borderline absurd.”

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“On the one hand, there is an admission that deliberate sabotage took place, but on the other, there is no further progress,” Russian news agency Interfax quoted Peskov as saying.

Swedish authorities earlier in February similarly ended a preliminary investigation into the sabotage after finding no indications that the attack involved Sweden or its citizens. A probe remains pending in Germany. BLOOMBERG