Russia believes the explosions at the Nord Stream pipelines were attacks by international terrorists, Igor Girenko, a spokesman for the Russian embassy to the US, said in a statement on Wednesday.
"We qualify the incident as an act of international terrorism that requires a comprehensive and independent investigation," the statement said.
"It wouldn’t hurt if the US, which claims the monopoly on the truth, shifted from empty accusations directed at us to the matter at hand and at least try to prove it wasn’t involved in the destruction of the gas pipelines."
The embassy pointed to the unrestrained reaction of the US State Department spokesman Ned Price "to a completely reasonable question from journalists about how the administration would feel about the involvement of the UN in the search for those responsible for the unprecedented sabotage attack in the Baltic Sea."
"The interest of the correspondents was more than justified, given the total disregard by the US government - with the tacit consent of domestic media - of the resonant investigation of the Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh," Russian embassy spokesman said.
"The Russian side won’t allow the situation with the explosions at the critical energy infrastructure to be downplayed, especially given that there’s no information about several undetonated explosives that have apparently remained on the sea bed," he said.
On Wednesday, State Department spokesman Ned Price said at a news conference that the United States has nothing to do with the explosions at the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines and is ready to reiterate this at a meeting of the UN Security Council. Price described reports that Washington was behind the explosions as complete misinformation.
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh on February 8 published an article where he said, citing a source, that explosives under the Russian Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were planted by US Navy divers, helped by Norwegian specialists, under the guise of the Baltops exercise in June.
The story stated that the CIA and Burns took part in the preparation of the operation, and US president Joe Biden personally authorized the operation after nine months of deliberations with the administration’s national security staff. Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council at the White House, responded to a request for comment from TASS that the story laid out by Hersh was totally false and complete fiction.
Russia Will Not Allow Silencing Issue of Nord Stream Explosions: Embassy in US
Moscow will not allow silencing the reports suggesting the United States was behind the explosions on Nord Stream gas pipeline given that there is no data on several remaining explosives in the Baltic Sea, the Russian embassy in the US said on Thursday.
"The Russian side will not allow to simply turn the page on blowing up the critical energy infrastructure. Especially given the fact that nothing is known about the several remaining explosives, apparently located on the bottom of the sea," embassy spokesman Igor Girenko said on Telegram.
The diplomat also said that Moscow qualified the incident as "an act of international terrorism" that requires a "comprehensive and independent investigation."
He added that the US should drop the "baseless accusations" against Russia and "get down to business."
Earlier in the day, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said, when asked whether the United Nations should play a role in probing the suspected sabotage, that he would leave it to the US' partners on whose territory the blast occurred to speak to the appropriate investigative mechanisms.
On September 26, three of the four strings of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines were damaged by underwater blasts.
Last week, Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report detailing how US Navy divers had allegedly planted explosives under the pipelines, which Norway activated three months later.
US President Joe Biden allegedly decided to sabotage the Nord Stream pipelines after more than nine months of secret discussions with his national security team, the report based on insider information from a source said.
The US government has repeatedly denied involvement in the blowing up of the Russian pipelines, while the Russian government has demanded an open investigation and called an emergency Security Council meeting next week.
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