MOSCOW, May 3. /TASS/. Sweden has responded with a formal reply to the Russian note dated April 12 calling for a thorough international investigation into the act of sabotage on the Nord Stream gas pipeline, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.
"I’d like to remind everyone that Russia’s appeals [regarding this matter], namely the letter dated October 5, 2022, from Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin as well as the Russian Foreign Ministry’s diplomatic notes, have gone without any substantive response. Yet more proof of the West’s adoption of a deliberately unconstructive line is the reply given by the Swedish Foreign Ministry to the Russian embassy in Stockholm, in response to our note of April 14 appealing for the provision of information regarding progress in establishing the circumstances of the acts of terrorism on the gas pipelines and all those responsible for it, as well as demanding that a thorough international investigation of the act of sabotage be conducted in which Russian specialists would participate as a matter of course," she told a briefing.
"And this time, the Swedish side has responded with a formal reply, limiting itself merely to references to earlier correspondence. A classic vicious circle," the diplomat added.
The Foreign Ministry spokeswoman lamented that the Russian side was continuing to see only "a repetitive theater of the absurd" instead of real dialogue. "There is no substantive conversation [between us and them], let alone an investigation, participation in investigative measures, and a general examination of the situation with those countries that have announced their own investigations, because they have done everything in their power to ensure that these investigations are not transparent," she concluded.
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, Swedish seismologists had registered two explosions on the pipeline routes. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office subsequently initiated criminal proceedings regarding an act of international terrorism.