FILE PHOTO: On September 27, 2022, gas bubbles from the Nord Stream 2 leak could be seen near Bornholm, Denmark, disrupting the surface of the Baltic Sea and measuring well over one kilometer in diameter.
RUSSIA –
After an investigative journalist claimed that American divers blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines at the White House’s request, the Kremlin declared on Thursday that the world should know the truth about who destroyed the pipelines and that those involved should be punished.
On September 26, seismologists recorded explosions and a rapid reduction in pressure on both pipelines, which raised concerns about possible sabotage of one of Russia’s most vital energy routes.
Investigative writer Seymour Hersh, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for reporting, said in a blog post that President Joe Biden had directed U.S. naval divers to blow up the pipes using explosives.
The charges, according to Norway’s foreign minister, are “nonsense.”
Peskov told reporters, “The world must learn the truth about who committed this act of sabotage.” “If someone did it once, they can do it again anywhere in the globe. This is a very dangerous precedent.”
It is unthinkable to leave this without finding those guilty and punishing them, he continued, calling for “an open international inquiry of this unprecedented attack on international essential infrastructure.”
Peskov cautioned against using a blog as a primary source, but he added that it would be “unfair” to exclude a post that was “exceptional for the depth of analysis.”
Russia has often claimed, without offering any proof, that the West was responsible for the explosions in September that damaged the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, two multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects that delivered Russian gas to Germany.
President Vladimir Putin has accused “Anglo-Saxon” nations of detonating the pipelines, a Kremlin-designed plan to bypass Ukraine and send Russian gas directly to western Europe beneath the Baltic Sea.
Swedish and Danish investigators, whose exclusive economic zones the explosions happened in, have concluded the ruptures were caused by sabotage but have not identified the perpetrator.
Hersh said in his blog post titled “How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline” that a plan to destroy the pipes was devised in 2021 at the highest levels in the United States.
According to the article, a CIA working group developed a covert operation strategy to plant explosives on the pipes.
The United States will face “consequences,” according to deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov. He said that Russia was not surprised by the news since it has long suspected that the United States and maybe other NATO countries were responsible for the explosions.
On Thursday, Ryabkov was cited by the official news agency RIA as stating, “I think there will be repercussions from this.”
The study should serve as the foundation for an international probe to “bring Biden and his collaborators to justice,” according to Vyacheslav Volodin, the leader of the Russian State Duma, or lower house of parliament.
According to Volodin, the US should give “compensation to countries impacted by the terrorist assault.”