
Who Blew Up the Nord Stream Pipelines?
In September 2022, explosions tore open the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea, cutting off a major artery of Russian gas to Europe and leaving investigators with a crime scene no one could easily reach. This joint investigation by ARD-Hauptstadtstudio, the program Kontraste, broadcaster SWR, and newspaper DIE ZEIT sends a large reporting team after the culprits, sifting through the leading theories: a Kremlin operation to punish Europe, a covert American hand, or a plot traceable back to Ukraine. Reporters interview investigators, intelligence researchers, and people connected to the maritime logistics such an operation would require, piecing together how a sabotage team could have reached the pipeline and planted charges undetected. The film lays out what forensic and circumstantial evidence exists, where it points, and where it simply runs out. Rather than settling on a single culprit, it maps the competing narratives European governments and journalists have advanced, and shows how a year of investigation has produced suspicion without proof.