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Ukrainian defense minister says Kiev wasn’t involved in sabotaging Nord Stream

The New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing US officials, that the latest intelligence data suggest a pro-Ukrainian group could be behind the sabotaging of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines

BRUSSELS, March 8. /TASS/. Ukrainian Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov has said Ukrainian special services weren’t involved in sabotaging the Nord Stream undersea natural gas pipelines.

He made the statement on the sidelines of an EU defense ministers meeting in Stockholm, following recent news media reports about the explosions that damaged the pipelines.

"For me, this (the reports - TASS) is a bit strange because this story has nothing to do with us. I believe an investigation by official agencies will clear up the details. It, of course, is a compliment to our special services but this is not our activity," Reznikov said, according to a video on the European Commission’s website.

The New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing US officials, that the latest intelligence data suggest a pro-Ukrainian group could be behind the sabotaging of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines. The US government wasn’t aware of the operation, the report said. The German newspaper Die Zeit issued a report that said German investigators had identified the ship that was used by the saboteurs. The company that rented it was allegedly owned by Ukrainian nationals and was registered in Poland.

The Nord Stream AG company reported on September 27 that three threads of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 offshore gas pipelines had suffered unprecedented damage the day before. Swedish seismologists later reported that two explosions had been recorded along the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office started investigating the case as an attack of international terrorists.