Sweden closes investigation of pipeline blasts, but officials stay silent on cause

After investigators delved into a series of undersea explosions that blew apart the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines linking Russia to Western Europe in fall 2022, intelligence agencies came to a general agreement: The evidence pointed toward pro-Ukraine forces, even if the question of who might have been directing them remained a mystery.

In Sweden, in whose economic zone the attack partly occurred, the issue remained so delicate that the nation wrapped its investigation in secrecy. It even refused to team up with its closest neighbors, Denmark and Germany, a sign of how nervous the issue was making officials in Stockholm at a moment when it is still maneuvering for acceptance into the NATO military alliance.

On Wednesday, after 16 months of closely guarding their findings, Swedish authorities finally published something — and reached no conclusion at all, at least in public. Sweden's prosecutor said he was ending his inquiry and had turned over what it had found to the same countries with which the nation had previously declined to cooperate. German officials say their investigation is ongoing.

The Swedish inquiry began with considerable fanfare, as soon as it was clear that an act of sabotage had been responsible. Because the attack took place partly in Sweden's economic zone — though in international waters — Sweden opened a criminal investigation.

That investigation ended Wednesday with what amounted to a news release, and no new findings. The conclusion, or rather the lack of a public one, underscored just how sensitive the issue remains.

Swedish officials, and many others in Europe, believed that the complexity of the operation suggested it was carried out by a state actor. And it seemed like no one wanted to publicly speculate about whether a pro-Ukraine group might have been behind the operation, with or without the knowledge of Ukrainian officials.