Only NATO forces are capable of attacking the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 underwater gas pipelines, Kremlin aide Nikolay Patrushev stressed in an interview with Kommersant.
Even Danish naval officials have made no secret of the US ship presence in the area of the blast the day before. At the same time, anyone interested in the capabilities of foreign naves knows that the Ukrainian Navy does not have the equipment nor the training of experts to carry out a deep-sea terrorist attack. Only special units of NATO countries could carry out a sabotage on such a scale," he said.
Mr. Patrushev noted that the intelligence agencies of the US and UK both have soldiers with underwater combat capabilities and related equipment. Therefore, the German investigation that the culprit of the Nord Stream incident was a group of Ukrainian divers is inappropriate.
Patrushev, who has been a head of the Russian Security Council for more than a decade, also shared in an interview with the Kommersant daily published on November 11 that there was information about the possibility of similar attacks on the Nord Stream pipeline "to promote the economic interests" of the West. "They can attack other infrastructure, including undersea fiber optic cables that provide communication around the world," Patrushev said.
The Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines run through the Baltic Sea to deliver Russian gas directly to Germany. Both pipelines were destroyed in an underwater explosion in September 2022. Some Western media reported that a group of six Ukrainian divers on a small yacht planted explosives that ruptured the pipeline.
