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Russia won't let national Nord Stream investigations ‘off the hook’ — Lavrov

On Monday, the UN Security Council did not support a resolution by Russia and China on an international investigation into the sabotage at the Nord Stream pipelines

MOSCOW, March 30. /TASS/. Russia's actions in the Nord Stream case will be aimed at not letting national investigations "off the hook", this discussion is not over, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference on Thursday.

"Everyone understands that these were terrorist attacks. But everyone also understands that serious Western representatives are not blameless in this matter, and they do not want the investigation to be truly objective," he said.

"Our next steps will be not to let these national investigations off the hook, as well as those who have sworn that this will be enough to find out the truth. This is exactly what we will do, and the matter is far from over," Lavrov added.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said earlier on Thursday that Russia is going to demand reports from the countries conducting national investigations into the sabotage at Nord Stream pipelines. "We will continue to raise this topic, which is inconvenient for the West. We will continue to return to it and make these countries return to it, demanding a report on national investigations," she said.

"To avoid the repetition of such attacks in the future, to protect the global energy infrastructure is possible only by establishing the truth, punishing those who are behind this terrorist attack," the diplomat said.

On Monday, the UN Security Council did not support a resolution by Russia and China on an international investigation into the sabotage at the Nord Stream pipelines. The document was supported by three countries, with no votes against and 12 countries abstaining. Thus, the resolution did not garner the nine votes necessary for approval. Russia, China and Brazil voted for it, while Albania, the UK, Gabon, Ghana, Malta, Mozambique, the UAE, the US, France, Switzerland, Ecuador and Japan abstained. Belarus, Venezuela, North Korea, Nicaragua, Syria and Eritrea were also among the resolution’s coauthors but they are not members of the UN Security Council and did not participate in the vote.

The resolution’s draft proposed to entrust UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres with establishing an independent international investigation commission "to conduct a comprehensive, transparent and impartial international investigation of all aspects of the act of sabotage on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines — including identifying its perpetrators, sponsors, organizers and accomplices.".