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Nord Stream gas leak investigation

Spanish politician says 'powerful Western country had a hand in' Nord Stream blasts

Former leader of Spain’s Podemos party Pablo Iglesias noted that Russia "did not benefit at all" from the act of sabotage

ROME, May 22. /TASS/. "A powerful Western country" is behind the Nord Stream blasts, former leader of Spain’s Podemos party Pablo Iglesias said.

In an interview with Italy’s Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper, published on Monday, he maintained that the German authorities were trying to cover up someone’s tracks even though the incident was tantamount to a declaration of war. "Blowing up the two gas pipelines means declaring war against Germany, so it’s ridiculous and disgusting [to watch] how the German government is trying to brush it all under the carpet," Iglesias noted. According to him, many countries are playing ambiguous roles in the situation around the Ukrainian conflict.

"A powerful Western country clearly had a hand in the attack on Nord Stream, an infrastructure facility belonging to Russia and Germany, that is, a NATO member," Iglesias said, adding that Russia "did not benefit at all" from the act of sabotage.

Iglesias earlier served as deputy prime minister in Spain’s government. He was among the founders of the Podemos party that was founded amid the 2015 Indignados protests (similar to the Occupy Wall Street movement). The party later entered the country’s parliament and is now part of the ruling coalition.

The Nord Stream AG company reported on September 27, 2022, that three threads of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 offshore gas pipelines had suffered unprecedented damage the day before. Swedish seismologists recorded two explosions along the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office opened a case into an act of international terrorism over the damage to the pipelines. On February 8, US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in an article that US Navy divers had planted explosive devices under the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines with the assistance of Norwegian specialists in June 2022. The New York Times reported later, citing US officials, that the latest intelligence data suggested a pro-Ukrainian group could have been behind the act of sabotage and the US government wasn’t aware of the operation.

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Nord Stream gas leak investigation

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