UNITED NATIONS: A media campaign to circulate the most absurd versions about the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage is currently under way in t...
UNITED NATIONS: A media campaign to circulate the most absurd versions about the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage is currently under way in the West, Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said.
"There are more signs indicating that instead of clarifying the circumstances, there are attempts to conceal them. Thus a campaign is taking place in Western media space for promoting absurd versions of what had happened," the Russian diplomat told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
Nebenzya listed a number of versions that have been brought before the public, including that "it was Russia who blew up a gas pipeline that was functioning in its interests" and that "it was done by some ‘tourists’ on a sailing yacht, who (according to one version) acted almost on their own initiative and without state support <…>, or (according to another) - received orders from the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, [Valery] Zaluzhny, who acted discreetly and without clearance from his immediate superior, [Ukrainian] President [Vladimir] Zelensky."
"Even more ridiculous than that was a story published in some European media. According to it, intelligence services of Western states (the US included), were aware of the plans of the Ukrainians and even discouraged them from proceeding, but the Kiev still did it its way," the Russian diplomat continued. "But what we learned from the case when Ukraine rejected a peace treaty with Russia in March 2022 is that the Kiev authorities cannot go against their Western supervisors on such a serious issue."
"One cannot fail to notice what all these versions have in common. Each of them denies Washington's involvement in this crime," he added.
According to the Russian envoy, all those versions started to emerge when Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist Seymour Hersh published the results of his own large-scale investigation earlier this year.
On September 27 last year, Nord Stream AG reported "unprecedented damage" a day earlier on three strings of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 offshore pipelines. Swedish seismologists had recorded two explosions on the offshore routes of the pipelines on September 26. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office launched criminal proceedings over an act of international terrorism after the gas pipelines were damaged.
On February 8, US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published an article claiming, 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 naval 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.
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