MOSCOW, October 11. /TASS/. The Nord Stream explosions were international terrorist attacks, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a plenary session of the Russian Energy Week.
"The Nord Streams were blown up. Nobody is investigating. I am surprised by the stance of many European countries. This is a clear act of international terrorism, by all appearances, at the state level. Because, just like that, some group of people who suddenly decided to blow up gas pipelines, on their own, without any support at the state level, would have been unable to commit an act like that," he said.
"Our repeated appeals proposing to participate in this investigation are being ignored," the Russian leader added.
On September 27, 2022, Nord Stream AG reported unprecedented damage that occurred the day before on three strings of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 offshore gas pipelines. On September 26, 2022, Swedish seismologists registered two explosions on the pipeline routes. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office launched a criminal case in connection with the incident based on charges of international terrorism.
On February 8, US Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an article claiming, citing anonymous sources, that US Navy divers had planted explosive devices under the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines under the cover of the BALTOPS naval exercise in June 2022, and that the Norwegians then activated the bombs three months later. According to the journalist, the decision to conduct the operation was made by US President Joe Biden personally, following nine months of discussions with White House national security advisers.
TASS is the information partner of the Russian Energy Week.