Swedish investigators say sabotage caused the explosions at the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea. The leaks in the crucial pipelines connecting Russia and Germany occurred simultaneously in September. Moscow last month claimed without evidence that the United Kingdom attacked the pipeline. While the culprit behind the attacks remains unidentified, Straight Arrow News contributor Peter Zeihan says the truth about the Nord Stream attacks may cripple Europe because of its dependence on Russian energy.

Excerpted from Peter’s Nov. 21 “Zeihan on Geopolitics” newsletter:

The Nord Stream bombing is one of those situations where the truth won’t set you free. Sweden, which has the most robust naval and forensic capabilities in the area, is indicating it has ample evidence to implicate Russia in the bombing. Calling a spade a spade would hold grave consequences for Europe. Much of what makes today’s Europe today’s Europe is unfettered access to not simply Russian energy supplies, but a wide array of Russian non-energy material inputs…and you don’t trade with countries that blow up your stuff.

But the new news is that the Swedes had identified the type of explosive and they’ve actually gotten samples from within the pipeline, which means that they’ve got their nose so far deep into where the evidence would be that they know exactly who did it and how. For weeks, Sweden has been unofficially pointing the finger at Russia, Sweden has by far the most capable navy on the Baltic Sea. Sweden has by far the most advanced sonar and forensic capability in the area. And on the day that Nord Stream was bombed, they started quietly telling their European partners that it was definitely the Russians who did it. And if there’s anyone in the space that has the ability to identify what actually happened, it would be Sweden. 

However, they have not made their findings official in any…possible way until now. And the question is, what has changed, and the question is, why have they not? Unfortunately, for the Europeans, the answer is pretty simple to the second questions. If they admit that the Russians are deliberately destroying critical European infrastructure, then that requires action. In the parlance of the United States, it makes Russia a state sponsor of terrorism. And countries that kind of fall into that category, you don’t trade with. And this, at least at this moment, has not been an option for the Europeans at all. Even with Nord Stream offline, Russia remains the number three supplier of natural gas to the continent. It is the number one source of the inputs that allows the Europeans to make fertilizer or to smelt aluminum. This is the raw material that goes into their steel. This is the raw material that goes into their copper. This is the raw material that goes into the European semiconductor sector. This is timber.

You remove all of that from the European system and there is no way you don’t have something that is at least as bad as the 2007-2013 financial crisis in the Europe space. This is the kind of thing that would trigger a recession, that it’s very possible that the Europeans wouldn’t recover from.