US media leaks from anonymous sources about the sabotage attacks on Nord Stream pipelines are intended only to confuse those who are trying to find out the truth, Minister-Counselor of the Russian Embassy in the United States Andrey Ledenev said.
Commenting on an article in the New York Times, the diplomat said: "First of all, we took notice of the fact that the mentioned article instantly got a ‘green light’ in the local information field, literally being all over the media in a heartbeat."
"This is especially noteworthy given the attempts of the local officials and journalists to blatantly silence the resonant material of the Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh on the same topic. As well as the administration's opposition to launching a comprehensive and independent investigation into this act of international terrorism against critical energy infrastructure," Ledenev was quoted as saying on the Russian embassy's official Telegram channel.
In his words, "it looks like local authorities have something to hide given the fact they openly threatened the operation of the gas pipelines, and afterwards overtly savored their destruction," especially since mutually beneficial cooperation between Russia and Europe "has always been like a thorn in Washington's side."
"We have no faith in the ‘impartiality’ of the conclusions of the US intelligence. We perceive anonymous ‘leaks’ as nothing more than an attempt to confuse those who are sincerely trying to get to the bottom of things in this egregious crime. Shift the blame from the statesmen who ordered and coordinated the attacks in the Baltic Sea to some abstract individuals," the Russian diplomat continued.
"We are convinced that in the end justice will prevail. We shall spare no effort for this to happen," he added.
The New York Times reported earlier on Tuesday, citing anonymous sources, that US intelligence has so far been unable to identify the mastermind of last September's sabotage attacks that targeted the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, which transported natural gas from Russia to Europe. The anonymous officials interviewed by the newspaper said there had been no firm conclusions about those responsible, thus leaving open "the possibility that the operation might have been conducted off the books by a proxy force with connections to the Ukrainian government or its security services."
Meanwhile, Germany’s Die Zeit newspaper wrote that German investigators had allegedly identified the vessel used in the attack. The company that leased it was owned by Ukrainian citizens.
On September 27, 2022, Nord Stream AG reported unprecedented damage that occurred the day before on three strings of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 offshore gas pipelines. On September 26, 2022, Swedish seismologists registered two explosions on the pipeline routes. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office launched a criminal case based on charges of international terrorism.
West must answer Russia’s inquiries on Nord Stream instead of media leaks — diplomat
The West must respond to Russia’s official inquiries instead of organizing media leaks regarding the Nord Stream sabotage, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on her Telegram channel Tuesday.
"The Western media are going crazy about the report saying the investigators came up with a version regarding the Nord Stream [sabotage] that a) Russia didn’t do it and b) Ukrainian groups did it. One has to wonder, who organizes such leaks, filling the informational space with them? The answer is: those who do not want to carry out the investigation within the legal frameworks and seek to divert the audience’s attention from facts by any means," the diplomat noted.
"Instead of media leaks, Western regimes, involved in the incident, must answer Russia’s official inquiries and, at the very least, take the materials of the journalist investigation (by US journalist Seymour Hersh - TASS) in the work, without substituting it with anonymous injections," she added.
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