MOSCOW, March 27. /TASS/. The West is trying as best it can to "whitewash" and paper over the topic of the Nord Stream explosions, but Moscow will continue to oppose such attempts, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Monday.
"Western countries are making every effort to ‘whitewash’ <…> this topic, to paper it over, so that it disappears from the agenda. But, of course, Russia will continue to do everything possible to prevent this from happening," he said.
Peskov also mentioned the possibility of demanding compensation for Nord Stream.
"If we are talking about, let’s say, sabotage by one or more state actors - and, thus far, the data indicates that such a large-scale act of sabotage and terrorist act on a critically important piece of infrastructure could not have been committed without the involvement of state actors and special state services with all the potential they can deploy - in this case, of course, that would be an entirely justified question," he said. The Kremlin spokesman added that for now this is only a hypothetical discussion. He noted that first it is necessary to identify the person or persons responsible for the attacks.
Nord Stream served as one of the main routes for gas supplies from Russia to Europe. Due to difficulties with maintenance of turbines amid anti-Russian sanctions, it had recently been used only partially. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline was completed but never put into operation, also due to anti-Russian sanctions.
On September 27, 2022, Nord Stream AG reported unprecedented damage that occurred the day before on three strings of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 offshore gas pipelines. On September 26, 2022, Swedish seismologists registered two explosions on the pipeline routes. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office has opened a criminal case based on charges of international terrorism.