Last week, bombshell reporting by veteran US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh revealed that the Biden administration was directly responsible for September’s attacks against the Nord Stream network, which cut off a major Russian route for energy deliveries to Germany, and undermined Europe’s energy security.
Denmark and Sweden have failed to respond to Russian overtures to discuss the Nord Stream blasts for nearly six months now, with their behavior constituting nothing short of a “boorish” attempt to hide Washington's responsibility for the sabotage attack, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said.
“For half a year now they've been as silent as a fish on ice, and since September neither the Swedes nor the Danish have responded to official letters of our prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, who very politely offered to appoint some kind of contact person with whom it would be possible to hold talks, since [the attack] took place in the territorial waters of their exclusive zones, and the pipelines are the property of a Russian company,” Lavrov said, speaking to reporters on Wednesday.
“If since September the head of the Russian government is waiting for a reply from the absolutely independent sovereign states in question, if our ambassadors remind the prime ministers of these countries about once a month that they've been contacted, at least tell him 'yes mister prime minister, we have received your appeal but we're busy at the moment'.
But we haven't got even that. I think this is boorishness. But this boorishness masks the total failure of attempts to obscure the responsibility of the collective West, led by the United States, for this sabotage, for organizing this terrorist act,” the Russian top diplomat added.
Lavrov characterized the sabotage of Nord Stream a “final solution to the German gas issue” by its overseas partners. “Just as they are now trying to resolve the 'Russian question,' so did they want to resolve the 'German question,' so that Berlin would never try to play any kind of independent role in the foreseeable historical perspective," Lavrov said, recalling how competitively-priced and dependable Russian energy had enabled Germany to become Europe's leading economy.
“Germany was not just humiliated, but was put in its place – the place of a satellite of the United States, with Washington deciding whether the country can ensure its economic development, meet the social needs of its citizens through the use of gas coming through a pipeline which Berlin partially paid for itself.” The Biden administration doesn't seem to “give a damn about what hardship will befall many countries, including their close allies,” Lavrov emphasized.
Lavrov suggested that the modern history of Europe has shown that whenever Russia and Germany enjoy good relations and are able to cooperate economically, in logistics and even militarily, Europe enjoys calmer, more peaceful times, to the irritation of forces across the ocean or across the English Channel, who seek to command Europe's destiny.
1984-Style Blackout on Hersh Revelations
Commenting on Hersh’s bombshell reporting on the Nord Stream blasts, and the media blackout in coverage of the story except to attack or smear the veteran investigative reporter, Lavrov compared Western governments’ behavior to a “trend” straight out of a George Orwell novel in which the state keeps media firmly under control.
“Look at the reaction in the West to Hersh’s precise, fact-based revelations in connection with the explosions of Nord Stream 1 and 2,” Lavrov said. The Russian diplomat pointed out that if Moscow was to be blamed, for instance, for the disruption of an oil pipeline between Canada and the US, the media would be forced to write about it non-stop. But with Hersh’s story – grounded in facts, the reaction has been zilch.
Lavrov urged the foreign press to conduct fact-based investigations into the costs being borne by European economies after the rejection of Russian energy, and to dig more closely into the details of the revelations uncovered by Hersh.
Consequences
As the potential implications of his reporting for international politics continue to reverberate, Hersh said Wednesday that he expects the “enormous” political consequences of the US attack on Nord Stream to last for many years, “looking even at the potential of countries walking out of NATO.”
The investigative journalist, who has an unimpeachable reputation for accuracy and over 60 years of journalistic experience under his belt, has also blasted his detractors for their cowardice, pointing out that despite his long careers with both the New York Times and the Washington Post, “neither paper has run a word this point about the pipeline story, not even to quote the White House’s denial of my reporting.”
The Russian mission to the United Nations plans to organize a Security Council meeting on the attack on Nord Stream on February 22, citing “new information” about the attack unveiled in Hersh’s reporting.
'Sounds like a confession': Lavrov on Stoltenberg’s remark about war in Ukraine since 2014
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has effectively admitted that the West brought Russia hawks to power in Kiev and supported them in waging a war against Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the State Duma on Wednesday.
This was how Russia’s top diplomat commented on a remark by the NATO chief who said the almost year-long conflict in Ukraine had not changed the alliance fundamentally, as the bloc had been preparing for it since 2014.
"Thus, he confessed that they had placed Russophobes, and neo-Nazis in power [in Ukraine] and [that] they have been providing support to them in their war against Russia," Lavrov concluded.
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