UNITED NATIONS, April 26. /TASS/. Western countries have sabotaged the Russia-initiated draft statement of the UN Security Council on acts of sabotage at the Nord Stream gas pipelines, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya said.

"Another act in this absurdist theater play was their explicit sabotage of talks on a new draft Security Council chair’s statement that was proposed by us this month. We expected it to give an assessment of the current situation around the destruction of Nord Streams after Denmark and Sweden finished their probes," he said at a United Nations Security Council meeting.

According to Nebenzya, the Russian draft was "very balanced." "To our surprise, Western countries appeared to be reluctant to see any references to the terrorist nature of the incident <…>. A question arises: what do our Western colleagues think about the incident other than a terrorist attack?" he noted.

On September 27, 2022, Nord Stream AG reported "unprecedented damage" on three strings of the offshore gas pipelines of the Nord Stream system. Later, Swedish seismologists said they had identified two explosions on the route of the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26, 2022. Following the incident, the Russian prosecutor general’s office opened a case on charges of international terrorism. Germany, Denmark, and Sweden launched their own national probes but refused to involve Russia.

On February 8, 2023, US investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh published an article that claimed, 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 exercise in June 2022, and that the Norwegians then activated the bombs three months later. According to the journalist, Danish and Swedish authorities were aware of US’ activities in the Baltic Sea several months before the Nord Stream blasts. That is why, in his words, they opted to fail their probes.

The New York Times said later, citing US officials, that the act of sabotage at the gas pipelines could have been committed by a "pro-Ukrainian group" acting independently.