Denmark confirms Russian special ship was near Nord Stream before explosions

This information has been confirmed by the Danish Armed Forces, according to the Danish outlet Information.

The Danish Armed Forces have confirmed that 26 photos of the Russian vessel were taken from a Danish patrol boat that was in the area east of Bornholm Island on September 22, 2022.

The special vessel is designed for underwater operations and has an AS-26 Priz mini-submarine on board.

Earlier it was reported that the Danish Ministry of Defense has 112 images of Russian vessels in the area. But this is the first time the defense ministry has confirmed that it is the Russian SS-750 with a mini-submarine on board.

At the same time, the ministry refuses to provide access to photos of the Russian special vessel, as the images are of an "intelligence nature" and "part of intelligence work."

Earlier, the German outlet T-Online and open-source intelligence analyst Oliver Alexander wrote that the SS-750 was one of six Russian naval vessels that could have been in the area in the days before the pipeline explosion.

They based this, among other things, on information from anonymous sources and satellite imagery, which showed that the SS-750 left the port of Kaliningrad at the same time as the Alexander Frolov and SB-123.

Earlier, the New York Times published an article citing sources and data from the intelligence community. It allegedly suggests that non-governmental groups, which could include Russians and Ukrainians, could have been behind the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea.

• On the night of September 26, 2022, a sudden drop in pressure occurred in the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. On September 27, it became known that gas from the Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline had leaked into the Baltic Sea on the eve of the launch of the Baltic Sea pipeline. 

• Experts have found that a man-made explosion of about 700 kg of TNT equivalent occurred on the routes of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea on September 26. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg called the incident a sabotage.

• The US and German media investigated the Nord Stream incident, seeing it as a trace of pro-Ukrainian forces, but officials in the countries and NATO advised to wait for the results of the investigation.

• On March 16, it became known that Denmark does not intend to allow Russian representatives to investigate the underwater explosions on the gas pipelines.