UNITED NATIONS, February 8. /TASS/. The United Nations is unable to verify an American journalist’s report about Washington being behind explosions on the Nord Stream gas pipelines, deputy spokesperson for the UN secretary general Farhan Haq said at a briefing on Wednesday.

"I have no way of verifying this particular report. Obviously, it would be up to US journalists to determine the veracity of these claims. And beyond that, I wouldn't have any comment at this stage," he noted.

US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote earlier that "last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning." According to Hersh, US President Joe "Biden’s decision to sabotage the pipelines came after more than nine months of highly secret back and forth debate inside Washington’s national security community."

In the meantime, Adrienne Watson, a White House spokesperson, said that "this is false and complete fiction."