MOSCOW, November 26. /TASS/. The Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has information pointing to the direct involvement of Anglo-Saxon special services in the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream gas pipeline, Sergey Naryshkin, head of SVR, said speaking at the 20th meeting of the Conference of Heads of Security Agencies and Intelligence Services of the CIS member states.

"It has long been known that the West uses international terrorism as a tool to achieve geopolitical goals. However, Western intelligence agencies also do not hesitate to resort to terrorist ways in fighting their adversary. It is enough to mention the explosion of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September 2022. The Foreign Intelligence Service has information about the direct involvement of professional saboteurs from the Anglo-Saxon intelligence services in this terrorist attack," he said.

Naryshkin recalled that Nord Stream was a joint Russian-European project "aimed at ensuring the uninterrupted supply of inexpensive Russian gas to Europe."

"That means that Russia built it together with constructively minded Europeans, and the Anglo-Saxons blew it up. Moreover, destroying Nord Stream was something not only the Democrats in the US wanted, but also the Republicans," the SVR Chief said.

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. White House National Security Council.