BERLIN, October 9. /TASS/. The Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety of Germany is unable to assess the damage, caused to the environment by the detonation of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, Parliamentary State Secretary in the ministry Bettina Hoffmann told Bundestag lawmakers.

"As you know, the damaged Nord Stream pipelines are located in the exclusive economic zones of Denmark and Sweden," she said, noting that these countries are formally responsible for the assessment of the damage.

"We are unaware about the damage to the marine environment outside of the damaged swathes. As far as the German government was informed, negative effects of the detonation were local and insignificant for the Baltic Sea in general," Hoffman said.

When one lawmaker asked if the damage was indeed insignificant, she corrected herself, pointing out: "We do not have information about the damage, because we have not surveyed it at the scene, we exchanged information about the damage, of course, but we do not engage in a constant exchange of information on the consequences for the environment with these two states."

She admitted that a lot of methane was expelled into the water, but, in her opinion, it did not cause long-term damage to the environment.

On September 26, 2022, unprecedented damage was caused to three ‘Nord Stream’ pipelines and to the non-commissioned ‘Nord Stream 2’ pipeline. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow has no doubts that the pipeline detonation was carried out with the US’ support. The Russian Prosecutor General’s Office initiated a criminal case over charges of an act of international terrorism.