Denmark has salvaged a mysterious object spotted in teh area of the Nord Stream 2 blast site, the Danish Energy Agency said on Wednesday, revealing it turned out to be a discarded smoke buoy.
"Investigations indicate that the object is an empty maritime smoke buoy, which is used for visual marking. The object does not pose a safety risk," the agency said in a statement.
The object was detected earlier this month, with Russian President Vladimir Putin revealing in a TV interview it was found during a Gazprom survey about 30 kilometers away from where the pipeline was breached in sabotage attacks last September.
Denmark invited representatives of the pipeline operator, Nord Stream 2 AG, to partake in the salvage. At the same time, the country is refusing Russia access to the Nord Stream sabotage probe. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Rasmussen has insisted the investigations being carried out by Denmark, Germany and Sweden are enough, given the strong "rule of law" in those countries.
The salvage of the buoy comes after the UN Security Council on Monday rejected a Russia-backed resolution calling for an international independent investigation into the blasts on the pipelines. The motion was supported only by Russia, China and Brazil, while 12 other members of the body, permanent and temporary, abstained. Vassily Nebenzia, Moscow’s permanent representative to the UN, said after the vote that "the suspicion [about] who stands behind the Nord Stream sabotage will only increase."
Last month, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh released a bombshell investigation, alleging the sabotage was a joint American-Norwegian operation commissioned directly by US President Joe Biden. The ultimate goal of the operation was to sever Germany from cheap energy supplies from Russia for good, therefore cementing its support in the Ukraine conflict.
Washington and Oslo have strongly denied the allegations, dismissing them as fiction, while the president of Russia said last week that he "fully agreed" with Hersh’s conclusions.