MOSCOW, February 17. /TASS/. The Russian side has no doubt that the responsibility for the Nord Stream incident lies with Washington, which is in principle an established matter, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told Channel One on Thursday.
"This is a disturbing act of sabotage, an eye-watering terrorist act, this is the US administration’s move to the stage that fundamentally used to be considered unthinkable and unacceptable, an attack on one of key facilities of critical infrastructure," he stressed.
"We have no doubt that the responsibility lies with the US, and we will continue the work on making sure it will not become history, without consequences for the US," Ryabkov added. "Short-range plans include in-depth studying of the issue at one of the meetings of the UN Security Council. <…> There is simply no question of reliability of sources, this is in fact an established matter," he pointed out.
The US wanted to use the sabotage attack at gas pipelines "to kill several birds," particularly, to hurt Russia’s economic interests, as well as to clear the way for export of American liquified gas, Deputy Minister said, adding that it is necessary to initiate "an independent international investigation with Russia’s compulsory participation."
Earlier, the Nord Stream AG company reported that three lines of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 offshore gas pipelines suffered unprecedented damage on September 26. Swedish seismologists later revealed that two explosions were recorded along the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26. The Danish Energy Agency reported that a large amount of gas had spilled into the sea. On November 18, the Swedish prosecutor’s office stated that the gas pipeline blasts were an act of sabotage and that an investigation was underway.