VIENNA, February 7. /TASS/. Ukraine should not receive any aid until its non-involvement in the Nord Stream gas pipeline sabotage is proven, says Christian Hafenecker, Secretary General of the opposition Freedom Party of Austria.
"The detonation of these two pipelines is an attack on Western Europe’s energy supply, not a trifle. In the upcoming years, the European people and economy will continue to depend on the Russian gas. These pipelines would have ensured uninterrupted supply. Until the suspicions that Ukraine could be behind the explosions are alleviated, the billion-worth aid to Ukraine must be stopped," the politicians said in a press release.
He pointed out that the OMV oil and gas company, owned by the Austrian state by almost one third, invested about 800 million euros in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Therefore, Austria must demand compensation from a country, whose involvement in the sabotage will be proven, Hafenecker believes.
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. 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 damage to the pipelines.
On February 8, 2023, Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in an article, citing a source, that US Navy divers, with the assistance of Norwegian specialists, had planted explosive devices under the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in June 2022. The New York Times reported, citing US officials, that a certain "pro-Ukrainian" group might have committed the act of sabotage on the gas pipelines.