Following the September 2022 explosions that took out the Nord Stream pipeline, multiple investigations by different countries were launched to determine who was responsible for the sabotage attack. The United States government seemed oddly uncurious about the event, but other nations were demanding answers. One of those countries was Sweden. Now, nearly one and a half years later, they have closed the investigation. Their conclusion? There's apparently nothing to see here and they don't have the "jurisdiction" to investigate it anyway. We'll probably find out who actually killed JFK before this particular "mystery" is solved. (Associated Press)

Swedish officials said Wednesday that they have decided to close their investigation into the September 2022 explosions on the underwater Nord Stream gas pipelines which were built to carry Russian natural gas to Germany, saying they don’t have jurisdiction.

Sweden’s investigation was only one of three into the explosions. Denmark and Germany are also examining the blasts.

The attack, which happened as Europe attempted to wean itself off Russian energy sources following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, contributed to tensions that followed the start of the war. The source of the sabotage has been a major international mystery.

Swedish officials are now claiming that they don't have jurisdiction over the question because the original investigation was only intended to determine "whether Sweden somehow was used to carry out the detonations, thereby putting them at risk." Why the Swedish government wouldn't have known if they sent someone to blow up the pipeline is a mystery for another day. Germany and Denmark still allegedly have investigations ongoing.

But the full conclusions are also somewhat self-contradictory. They have declared that the investigation was "a fact-finding and evidence-finding process (and) that it may be dropped when they’ve gathered enough information to know what had happened and how.” Fair enough. But that suggests that they do indeed know "what happened and how." How can they be sure Sweden wasn't involved unless they have determined who was involved? 

Kenneth Øhlenschlæger Buhl of the Royal Danish Defense College offers another hint as to why the investigation may have been halted without releasing any findings. He said, "There might be a good reason for not going out with a conclusion. Sweden stands in a sensitive position as it wants to join NATO and may not want to rock the boat further.”

If the conclusion was that the Russians did it, how would that information "rock the boat" with NATO when virtually all NATO members side with Ukraine and against Russia? That makes no sense. The only way that the boat would be rocked would be if Sweden implicated other NATO members. It only takes one member to hold up another country's applications, and pointing the finger of blame at them could put their odds of membership at risk.

All of this still seems simply nonsensical. Vladimir Putin may be an evil and despotic warmonger, but he's not an idiot. Russia didn't blow up its own pipeline. Ukraine would no doubt have liked to do it as a strike against Moscow after the invasion, but performing a dive like that involving precision explosives is massively complicated. There are only a handful of teams in the world that could have pulled that off. Let's just face up to the reality here. The United States blew up the Nord Stream pipeline or at least they played a key role in helping Ukraine do it, but the Biden administration doesn't want to own up to it. I guarantee you that if Trump had blown that pipeline up he would have held a press conference the same day bragging about it. I have no idea why Biden is being so timid.