On September 27, two explosions severely damaged Russia’s Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm, setting off wild speculation about possible sabotage.
Another two breaks in the pipeline, a tad to the north in Sweden’s Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ), were later identified but no explosions were reported. According to news sources citing Danish officials, each explosion was equivalent to 500 kilograms of TNT, the size of very large anti-shipping mines.
Not only the US Navy (together with its NATO allies) but also the Russian Navy conduct naval exercises in the Baltic Sea and many believe either the Russians or Americans are clandestinely responsible for the two blasts. Predictably enough, the two sides have blamed each other in loud and emphatic terms – without corroborating or credible evidence.
Unmentioned amid the incendiary speculation is the explosive condition of the Baltic seabed, which is loaded with dumped artillery shells, chemical weapons including Tabun nerve gas and mines. Under an agreement reached at the Potsdam Conference in 1945, Britain and the Soviet Union dumped approximately 69,000 tons of Germany’s chemical weapons stockpile into the Baltic Sea in 1947-48.
A second dumping in the same area took place in 1959. Moreover, during World War I and II, Germany laid some 80,000 sea mines including moored contact mines and constructor mines in the Baltic Sea, including around Bornholm. There are known to be Russian moored contact mines in the same area.
Overall, fewer than 200 mines have been located and exploded at sea. The fuses were removed from dumped chemical weapons but not necessarily from other munitions. The moored sea mines remain active.
Not all the munitions and chemical weapons, including nerve gas, remained where they were dumped and some of them were dropped short of their designated areas.
When the British dumped ammunition into the North Sea, they encased it in old ships, which they sank to prevent weapons from drifting on the seabed. This was not the case in the Baltic Sea, however.
Some weapons have washed ashore and signs of chemical contamination have been detected in Poland and elsewhere. Three Dutch fishermen were killed when they snared a mine and brought it up to the deck of their craft, where it detonated.
Engineers responsible for design work on the Nord Stream pipeline in 2005 were aware of the seabed’s littered circumstances, although all the exact dump sites were not known. A study completed prior to Nord Stream 1 found German mustard gas bombs 17 meters from the pipeline route and a fuse for a chemical bomb 16 meters from it.
A maximum effort was made to avoid known dump sites in laying the pipeline.
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