MOSCOW: One of President Vladimir Putin’s top aides said Monday that the US and Britain were sowing the seeds of deception that a pro-Ukraine group exploded. nord stream gas pipeline at the bottom of the Baltic Sea last year.
Last week the New York Times reported that intelligence reviewed by US officials suggested that pro-Ukraine groups – possibly involving Ukrainians or Russians – attacked the pipelines in September.
Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, cast doubt on that report, questioning whether such a group would have the capacity to carry out such a daring act of sabotage on Russia’s most important energy corridors to Europe.
“In an effort to cover up the true people behind the crime, the pro-government Anglo-Saxon media – on orders from above – have named one perpetrator – a group of Ukrainian terrorists,” Patrushev told Argumenti i Fakti newspaper.
Russia still does not know for sure who was behind the attack, Petrushev said, because it was not included in the investigation into the blasts.
“If the newspapers enthusiastically claim that the sabotage was carried out by a group of Ukrainian terrorists, it is necessary to ask whether such a group actually exists, and whether it was capable of carrying it out,” he said. Said.
The United States and Britain, Patrushev said, have the capability to blow up such a pipeline. Both have strongly denied doing so.
As a former Soviet spy who has known Putin since the 1970s, Patrushev is seen by diplomats as one of the major influences on Putin, who accused the “Anglo-Saxons” of sabotaging Nord Stream. What he called a terrorist attack.
On 26 September a significant drop in pressure was recorded on both pipelines and seismologists detected explosions. Swedish and Danish investigators have yet to determine who was responsible.
Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh cited an unnamed source in a February blog post as saying that US Navy divers had destroyed the pipelines with explosives on the orders of President Joe Biden.
The White House dismissed Hersh’s report as “absolutely false and complete fiction”. Norway said the allegations were “nonsense”.
The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines have a combined annual capacity of 110 billion cubic meters – more than half of Russia’s normal gas export volume. Parts of the 1,224-kilometre (760-mile) long pipeline running from Russia to Germany are about 80–110 meters deep.
Last week the New York Times reported that intelligence reviewed by US officials suggested that pro-Ukraine groups – possibly involving Ukrainians or Russians – attacked the pipelines in September.
Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council, cast doubt on that report, questioning whether such a group would have the capacity to carry out such a daring act of sabotage on Russia’s most important energy corridors to Europe.
“In an effort to cover up the true people behind the crime, the pro-government Anglo-Saxon media – on orders from above – have named one perpetrator – a group of Ukrainian terrorists,” Patrushev told Argumenti i Fakti newspaper.
Russia still does not know for sure who was behind the attack, Petrushev said, because it was not included in the investigation into the blasts.
“If the newspapers enthusiastically claim that the sabotage was carried out by a group of Ukrainian terrorists, it is necessary to ask whether such a group actually exists, and whether it was capable of carrying it out,” he said. Said.
The United States and Britain, Patrushev said, have the capability to blow up such a pipeline. Both have strongly denied doing so.
As a former Soviet spy who has known Putin since the 1970s, Patrushev is seen by diplomats as one of the major influences on Putin, who accused the “Anglo-Saxons” of sabotaging Nord Stream. What he called a terrorist attack.
On 26 September a significant drop in pressure was recorded on both pipelines and seismologists detected explosions. Swedish and Danish investigators have yet to determine who was responsible.
Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh cited an unnamed source in a February blog post as saying that US Navy divers had destroyed the pipelines with explosives on the orders of President Joe Biden.
The White House dismissed Hersh’s report as “absolutely false and complete fiction”. Norway said the allegations were “nonsense”.
The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines have a combined annual capacity of 110 billion cubic meters – more than half of Russia’s normal gas export volume. Parts of the 1,224-kilometre (760-mile) long pipeline running from Russia to Germany are about 80–110 meters deep.
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