KAZAN, September 23. /TASS/. Unfounded allegations about some country being involved in the attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities are inadmissible, Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergei Naryshkin said on Monday.
“We obviously condemn such actions. However, very clear unbiased evidence of guilt is required. Flimsy allegations about some country, movement or any other force being the initiator of those actions are inadmissible,” he said.
The situation around the attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities was discussed at the meeting on Monday, Naryshkin said. "We discussed our cooperation in reversing the situation in the Middle East as well. Of course, we mentioned the dangerous events connected with attacks on the energy infrastructure of Saudi Arabia," he noted.
The facilities of the national oil company Saudi Aramco in the east of Saudi Arabia were attacked by ten drones on September 14. Yemeni Houthi rebels from the Ansar Allah movement claimed responsibility for the incident. Particularly, the world’s biggest oil refinery near the city of Abqaiq and a refinery near Khurais, where Saudi’s second largest oil field is located, came under the attack. As a result of the attack, the kingdom reduced crude production by 5.7 mln barrels per day from 9.8 mln barrels produced earlier.
The US and Saudi Arabia held Iran responsible for the attacks. Tehran called those charges groundless.
Allegations that Russia is spying on FBI
The SVR director blasted allegations that Russian diplomats are spying on the FBI from the Russian embassy’s compounds as absurd, he told reporters in Kazan answering a question about these reports that had emerged in the US.
"This is absurd," he said.
Earlier, Yahoo News reported that Russian intelligence services managed to obtain unauthorized access to a number of communication channels of Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agents in the US during Barack Obama’s tenure, citing its sources. According to these sources, the US authorities believe that Russia used government compounds in the states of Maryland and New York to conduct this operation. These compounds allegedly contained a certain part of the equipment to intercept signals.
The Russian Foreign Ministry pointed out that these accusations made against Russian diplomats had been put forward as a new electoral cycle in the US began.