MOSCOW, May 6. /TASS/. Europe is facing monstrous economic problems due to the fact that the US is using it for war against Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

"The economic problems that have now piled up in Europe thanks to the fact that the United States is using it primarily to support Ukraine and for war against Russia, this is monstrous," the top diplomat said in an interview with Bosnia’s ATV channel.

Using Germany as an example, the minister recalled that the prosperity of the European industrial complex is largely based on Russian energy resources.

"Everyone is already predicting the decline of Germany as an industrial miracle. But this 'miracle' was based on cheap, reliable, pipeline Russian gas," Lavrov emphasized. "Where are the Nord Streams? They were blown up. We have no doubt that this was done with the support of at least the Americans. The fact that the UN Security Council is avoiding the question of providing any information about this investigation is an unnecessary confirmation of this," he concluded.

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 initiated a criminal case on charges of international terrorism.

Later, American journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in his article that explosive devices were placed under the gas pipelines in June 2022 by US Navy divers with the assistance of Norwegian specialists. At the same time, The New York Times quoted US officials as saying that the sabotage of the gas pipelines could have been carried out by a certain "pro-Ukrainian group" that acted without the knowledge of the US authorities.