A gas leak from the Nord Stream gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea in a picture of the Danish armed forces, September 29, 2022.
Moscow/Washington – An article by an American investigative journalist resonates in Moscow , which this week accused the United States of sabotaging the Nord Stream gas pipeline last year. The world should know the truth about who sabotaged the gas pipelines, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, according to Reuters. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Washington would face “consequences” and added that the news did not come as a surprise to Russia.
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“It's a very dangerous precedent: if someone has done it once, they can do it again anywhere in the world,” said a spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched a military invasion of Ukraine last February, triggering Europe's biggest land conflict since World War II . At the same time, Peskov called for an international investigation into the incident surrounding the gas pipelines.
American journalist Seymour Hersh, who relies on one anonymous source “with direct knowledge of the operational planning”, published on his own blog a text in which he claims that US Navy divers planted explosives on a pipeline connecting Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea last year, and that the Americans later detonated them . They were supposed to do so with the help of Norway and at the behest of US President Joe Biden.
The White House categorically rejected the article, calling it “absolutely false and pure fiction”. Norway also denied any involvement and called the whole accusation nonsense. Reuters noted today that it was unable to confirm the journalist's claim.
Since the blog appeared, Russian officials have been demanding answers, Reuters notes. The speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, said that the report should become the basis for an international investigation with the aim of “bringing Biden and his accomplices to justice.” Ryabkov stated that Hersh's report was not a surprise to Russia, as Moscow has long believed that the US and possibly other NATO members were behind the explosions.
A pair of pipelines connecting Russia and Germany along the bottom of the Baltic Sea were damaged by explosions last September. The incident is being investigated by Sweden and Denmark, in whose exclusive economic zones it took place. The Swedes concluded that it was the result of sabotage, Denmark that the gaps caused massive explosions. However, neither investigation has determined who is behind it. Germany is also conducting its own investigation, whose investigators, according to The Times, remain open to the theory of sabotage by a Western country with the aim of blaming it on Russia. Some European politicians have previously expressed their belief that Moscow is behind the damage to the gas pipelines. She refused and accused the West of sabotage.
Hersh claims in his article that Biden decided to blow up the gas pipelines in order to deprive Moscow of huge revenues from the sale of gas to Europe. The AFP agency recalled that the 85-year-old Hersh is one of the most famous American investigative reporters. Among other things, he revealed the massacre committed by American soldiers in the village of My Lai during the Vietnam War. However, several of his articles in recent years have caused controversy and other journalists have accused him of spreading conspiracy theories, writes AFP.
