MOSCOW, October 7. /TASS/. The United States and Great Britain played a direct part in committing the sabotage on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), said, addressing the 55th meeting of the Council of Heads of National Enforcement Agencies and Special Services of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

"The SVR has credible information that the United States and Great Britain were directly involved in that major terrorist attack (on the Nord Streams - TASS)," Naryshkin said. "According to data at our disposal, professional saboteurs from Anglo-Saxon special services took part in organizing, preparing and conducting it," he insisted.

While the investigation into this sabotage is ongoing in the West, "its course gives no hope that the real culprits behind the incident will ever be punished," the SVR chief continued. "Russia has repeatedly requested information regarding the explosions from the Europeans, but never got any. The Western media is trying to put the blame on a group of Ukrainian amateur divers who allegedly acted on their own. But this version targets the naive layman observer," he argued.

According to Naryshkin, "as Washington was not sure it can persuade the Europeans not to use the Nord Streams which were extremely advantageous for the German economy, the pipelines were destroyed."