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Nord Stream gas leak investigation

Official says Russia collects facts on Nord Stream sabotage, sees Western trace

They are so far indirect, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergey Naryshkin said

Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergey Naryshkin Alexei Nikolsky/Russian Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS

Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergey Naryshkin

© Alexei Nikolsky/Russian Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS

MOSCOW, October 3. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Intelligence Service Director Sergey Naryshkin has said Russia continues to collect facts regarding the sabotage against the Nord Stream, but some indirect data point to a Western trace.

He made the statement in an interview on the Rossiya-1 television channel’s program ‘Moscow. Kremlin. Putin.’

"We continue to collect facts. They are so far indirect. But the indirect data, both the data that were earlier published and the data that aren’t yet in the public domain, of course point to a Western trace," he said, fielding questions from journalist Pavel Zarubin.

On Tuesday, the Nord Stream AG company reported that three threads of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 offshore gas pipelines had suffered unprecedented damage on September 26. Swedish seismologists later reported that two explosions had been recorded along the Nord Stream pipelines. The Danish Energy Agency reported that a large amount of gas had spilled into the sea. Aircraft and ships are barred from approaching the site any closer than five nautical miles.

President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen described the incidents as sabotage, saying any deliberate disruption of European energy infrastructure is unacceptable and would be met with a decisive response.

Russian President Vladimir Putin placed the responsibility for the situation on the West. According to Putin, the Anglo-Saxons "in effect started to destroy pan-European energy infrastructure." He said that, "It’s clear to everyone who benefits from it.".

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