The US and UK intelligence agencies were involved in the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, TASS quoted Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) Director Sergey Naryshkin as saying at the 20th meeting of the Security Service and Community Intelligence Service (CIS) Leaders' Meeting on November 26.
The critical Nord Stream pipeline, built to transport Russian gas to Germany and the rest of Western Europe, ruptured by explosions at the bottom of the Baltic Sea in September 2022.
It has long been known that the West uses international terrorism as a tool to achieve its geopolitical goals. However, Western intelligence agencies themselves do not hesitate to use terrorist methods to fight their opponents, Naryshkin stressed.
The sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline is an example of such methods, according to the Russian foreign intelligence director.
TheVR holds information about the direct involvement of professional saboteurs from British and US special services in this terrorist attack, Naryshkin said.
Mr. Naryshkin noted that Nord Stream is a joint project between companies from Russia and other European countries, aimed at continuously supplying cheap Russian gas to Europe.
That means Russia has worked with Europeans to build it, and the British and Americans have destroyed it, Naryshkin said.
The head of the SVR stressed that destroying Nord Stream is a nightmare not only for Democrats but also for the entire Republican government in the United States.
On September 27, 2022, Nord Stream AG - the operator of Nord Stream - said that three branches of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 offshore gas pipelines had been damaged to an unprecedented extent. Swedish seismologists recorded two explosions along the Nord Stream pipeline on September 26.
The Russian Prosecutor General's Office opened a case for international terrorism related to damage to the pipeline. Germany, Denmark and Sweden have published separate national investigations but have refused to let Russia participate in the investigation.
On February 8, 2023, Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in an article, citing a source, that US Navy divers had planted explosives under the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines with the support of Norwegian experts, under the cover of the BALTOPS exercise in June 2022.
