UNITED NATIONS, November 9. /TASS/. Russia is deeply concerned by the fact that those responsible for the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines remain unidentified at this point, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya has told reporters.
"The Russian Federation is deeply concerned with the fact that one year after the Nord Stream attack, we still do not have any concrete information regarding the investigations <…>, let alone any of their findings," he said.
In his opinion, media reports circulating about the issue, were probably designed to deliberately distract the global community’s attention from the fact-finding process.
"The more they [the West] remain silent about their investigation of the Nord Stream act of terrorism, the more revealing the situation becomes from the point of view through intentions with the western states on breaking time in order to make the international community forget the story. However, the Russian Federation will not let it happen," he said.
According to the Russian envoy, Moscow ill make sure that the UN Security Council keeps working on the issue, pressing for a proper international investigation.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday Western countries have so far failed to tell Moscow what conclusions, if any, have been drawn in the investigation. Lavrov noted that authorities in Western countries were doing everything possible "to paper over any information on the matter." "Well, in fact, this has become the West’s trademark," the Russian foreign minister added.
Nord Stream explosions
The Nord Stream AG company reported on September 27, 2022, that three threads of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 offshore gas pipelines had suffered unprecedented damage. Swedish seismologists recorded two explosions along the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office opened a case into an act of international terrorism over damage to the pipelines. Germany, Denmark and Sweden announced separate national investigations but refused to involve Russia in the investigative procedures.
On February 8, 2023, Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in an article, citing a source, that US Navy divers, with the assistance of Norwegian specialists, had planted explosive devices under the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines with the assistance of Norwegian specialists under the cover of the BALTOPS exercise in June 2022. According to Hersh, US President Joe Biden made the decision to conduct the operation following nine months of consultations with national security officials.