The destruction of Nord Stream pipelines was an act of international terrorism and needs to be addressed to avoid “chaos” on the high seas, Moscow’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday. Russia has accused Germany, Sweden and Denmark of a cover-up to shield the US, and said it would only trust a UN investigation.
The two pipelines carrying Russian natural gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea were damaged by a series of blasts in September 2022. While Moscow has stopped short of openly accusing the US of carrying out the bombing, journalist Seymour Hersh did just that in an article published earlier this month.
Nebenzia referred to Hersh’s article and statements by multiple US officials threatening the pipeline – from president Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken, to “godmother of the anti-constitutional coup in Ukraine,” Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland. He also brought up the infamous tweet by former Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski and an alleged text by Liz Truss, the UK prime minister at the time – all suggesting the US and its allies had the motive, as well as means and opportunity, to destroy Nord Stream.
“We’re not going to do ‘highly likely’ here,” said Nebenzia, referring to the British accusations against Russia in the Security Council chamber in 2018. The publicly available evidence is “more than a smoking gun” that Hollywood is so fond of, but all Moscow wants is an independent international investigation into the claims in Hersh’s article, the Russian diplomat added.