"We have not received any explanations and it seems that we will never receive any explanations. There will be nothing new (from the US)," Konstantin Gavrilov, head of the Russian delegation to the Vienna Talks on Military Security and Arms Control, told Izvestia on May 8.
Mr Gavrilov expressed surprise at the reaction of European Union (EU) countries, which were hardest hit by the Nord Stream explosion, which damaged vital energy infrastructure built to transport Russian gas to Europe via Germany.
Germany, Sweden and Denmark are all investigating the explosions at Nord Stream 1 and 2 last fall. They have yet to make their findings public. They have also rejected Russia’s offer to assist in the investigation.
Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 are projects operated by Russia's Gazprom group, transporting gas from Russia to Germany. Photo: AP
Journalist Seymour Hersh. Photo: Reuters
In early February, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh said the US had ordered the destruction of Nord Stream. According to him, the explosives, which were detonated in September 2022, were placed by US Navy divers on gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea in June 2022 under the guise of a NATO exercise.
In the 5,800-word article, Mr. Harsh wrote: "In June 2022, US Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized midsummer NATO exercise called BALTOPS 22, planted remote-activated explosives that three months later destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to an inside source directly involved in the plan."
According to Mr. Hersh, that time was chosen to sabotage Nord Stream because the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was developing in a direction that was not beneficial to Kiev.
Pipes for the construction of the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline. Photo: DPA
Shortly afterwards, US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson dismissed the report, calling it "completely false and completely fictional". Spokespeople for the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the US State Department also issued similar statements.
The US government has repeatedly denied any involvement in the Nord Stream pipeline explosion. Russia, meanwhile, says an open investigation into the blast is needed.
According to RT , other Russian officials also said that the only party that benefits from the destruction of Nord Stream is the US, as the supply of liquefied natural gas from this country to Europe increased sharply after the explosion of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines.
However, recently, according to a joint investigation from media outlets from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland, Russian ships with underwater equipment were identified to have been near the sites of the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosion several days before the explosion.
Journalists at the aforementioned media outlets are said to have linked intercepted signals from the ships, with satellite imagery to locate and track their paths, according to Wired .
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