MOSCOW, November 24. /TASS/. Russia will not let those behind the acts of sabotage at the Nord Stream gas pipelines evade responsibility, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dmitry Polyansky said on Friday.
"Of course, the [UN] Security Council is not the only place where we raise this topic [Nord Stream blasts]. Neither is it the main place for that. We don’t abandon this topic and will not let those responsible evade punishment," he said in an interview with the Vesti FM radio station.
According to the Russian diplomat, many states view "this situation with Nord Stream as a potentially big threat to the future." "Because if we let what happened remain unpunished, a certain line will be crossed after which terror attacks on transborder, politically important infrastructure will be possible," he added.
On September 27, 2022, Nord Stream AG reported "unprecedented damage" on three strings of the offshore gas pipelines of the Nord Stream system. Later, Swedish seismologists said they had identified two explosions on the route of the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26, 2022. Following the incident, the Russian prosecutor general’s office opened a case on charges of international terrorism. Germany, Denmark, and Sweden launched their own national probes but refused to involve Russia.
On February 8, US investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh published an article that claimed, citing anonymous sources, that US Navy divers had planted explosive devices under the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines under the cover of the BALTOPS exercise in June 2022, and that the Norwegians then activated the bombs three months later. According to the journalist, the decision to conduct the operation was made by US President Joe Biden personally, following nine months of discussions with White House national security advisers.