The United States wants to downplay information about the possible involvement of US security services in last year's blasts on Russia's Nord Stream gas pipelines, the Russian Embassy to the US said in a statement.
The statement seemed to reference the bombshell report by journalist Seymour Hersh that the United States was behind the attack.
“We see this as an obvious attempt… to soft-pedal information, which is dangerous for the United States, obtained from reputable journalists about the likely direct involvement of American security services in organizing the 'crime of the century' against critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea,” the embassy said.
The embassy also accused the United States and media outlets in the country of avoiding the issue of environmental disaster due to the pipeline sabotage.
"The problem of potentially colossal damage to the environment from incidents on the pipelines is completely hushed up in the local information space," the embassy said.
The statement said the damage was not limited to the large-scale fuel leaks due to act of sabotage.
"We would like to remind you of the hundreds of thousands of munitions with toxic chemical agents sunken at the bottom of the Baltic Sea after World War II... explosions in this water area threaten to turn into an unprecedented environmental disaster and irreparable damage to regional states," the embassy said.
In September 2022, underwater blasts occurred at three of the four strings of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines built to carry a combined 110 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Europe annually.
Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, in a series of articles, claimed the United States was behind the Nord Stream blasts.
US, UK and EU Will Never Allow Impartial Probe Into Nord Stream Bombing, Security Analyst Says
Russia's attempt to hold the West accountable for the sabotage of its Baltic Sea gas pipelines supplying Germany was always doomed to failure, said international relations and security analyst Mark Sleboda, but served to keep the story in the headlines.
The Western powers have no intention of allowing an independent probe into the Nord Steam pipeline bombing, a security expert has said.
Russia's push at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) for a credible, independent probe into the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in September 2022 failed — despite support from China and Brazil — after other member states abstained in the vote.
Moscow's delegation pointed to the recent exposé by award-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, which detailed how the White House recruited a team of former US Navy divers to plant the explosives months before they were detonated remotely.
Hersh later said in an interview that the sabotage was a warning to Germany — which enjoyed cheap and plentiful high-quality gas from Russia through the pipeline — not to go soft on support for Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.
Mark Sleboda told Sputnik that the Russian draft resolution always had "zero chances of success."
"It is obviously not an investigation that the US, the United Kingdom or France, who are all permanent members of the UN Security Council, would allow to go forward," Sleboda pointed out. "This is an internal European matter that European investigations can quietly cover up all on their own."
But the aim of Russia and its fellow BRICS group members may have been political rather than legal, the analyst said. "I think the real goal of the Russian and Chinese efforts here is simply to draw attention to it, because they know very well who did it," Sleboda argued. "Any attempt of an independent or international investigation will not be allowed. And they're simply attempting to play into that."
The expert said that recent media reports that the pipelines were blown up by a "pro-Ukrainian" group of divers on a private yacht, quoting an anonymous US intelligence sources, was just part of the West's ongoing "information war."
"A little random Ukrainian story that the US has come up with now is just some random pro-Ukrainian set that blew up the pipeline," he scoffed.
"I think Russia and China are simply trying to keep the heat on that particular topic, even if this draft resolution has zero chances of success," Sleboda said.
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