UNITED NATIONS, October 2. /TASS/. Permanent Representative of France to the UN Nicolas de Riviere, whose country presided over the organization's Security Council in September, made a scene at the UN Security Council meeting on Nord Streams, Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky said on Saturday in a statement posted on his Telegram channel.
The Russian diplomat said that the meeting was "very remarkable" and noted that "all members of the Council more or less condemned the incident (the emergency at Nord Streams - TASS) and slammed it as unacceptable, many called for an investigation of the incident". According to Polyansky, "our opponents had evidently nothing to counteract the facts we presented".
At the same time, "the end of the session was marred by a scandal with the participation of the French envoy, who was presiding the meeting". "He was evidently upset by the unconvincing critique of our approaches from the Westerners and in violation of any norms and practices of the Security Council, he did not allow Gazprom spokesman Sergey Kupriyanov, who was invited to the event as a speaker (thank him very much for his participation and his very helpful presentation) to respond to the inappropriate allegations voiced against this company," the diplomat pointed out.
Polyansky stressed that this time "it was reduced to a banal attempt to shut the speaker up". "We posted on the social networks of our mission everything that Sergey couldn't say," the diplomat noted.
On Friday, Kupriyanov spoke via video link at the beginning of the Security Council meeting to report on the Nord Streams incidents. After all countries in the UN Security Council made their statements, the participants of the meeting had the right to engage in conversation. Russia's Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said that Kupriyanov wanted to comment on the words of previous speakers, to which de Riviere replied that he could give the floor to "the main owner of Gazprom". A video of Kupriyanov then came on, but as soon as he began to speak, de Riviere said he had not given him the floor. "I did not give you the floor. The representative of the Russian Federation has the floor," he said.
Nebenzya replied that he could not speak on behalf of Gazprom, but only asked to give the floor to Kupriyanov. De Riviere reiterated that "if the owner of Gazprom wants to speak, he can do it, if not, the meeting is closed". "I appreciate your irony, Mr. Chairman," Nebenzya responded, "But to be honest, we facilitated, of course, the participation of Gazprom's representative in the meeting. But he asked to speak not because we own it [Gazprom] but because he contacted us". De Riviere then closed the meeting right after that, without giving Kupriyanov the chance to speak back.
About Nord Streams emergency
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. The first leak was detected on Nord Stream 2 near the Danish island of Bornholm. Then two leaks were detected on Nord Stream. 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.
Swedish seismologists later reported that two explosions had been recorded along the Nord Stream pipelines. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen slammed the incidents as sabotage, pointing out that any "deliberate disruption of the European energy infrastructure is unacceptable and will lead to the strongest possible response".
Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed that the responsibility for the situation lied with the West. According to Putin, the Anglo-Saxons "have actually begun to destroy the European energy infrastructure". He pointed out that "it is obvious to everyone who benefits from this".