Russia’s Lavrov says ‘clear’ that US ordered 2022 Nord Stream blasts
Foreign minister doubles down on long-held Russian theory after reports that German prosecutors issued arrest warrant for Ukrainian man.
Russia has long-held suspicion that the United States played a role in the attack that damaged its pipelines under the Baltic Sea [File: Andrew Harnik/Pool via Reuters]Published On 19 Aug 202419 Aug 2024
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said that it is “clear” that the United States ordered the 2022 attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
His comment followed reports that German prosecutors have issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian man over the blasts on the pipelines, which carried Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea, while The Wall Street Journal reported the explosions were carried out by a Ukrainian crew and approved by Kyiv’s then military commander-in-chief.
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Speaking to reporters during a visit to Azerbaijan on Monday, Lavrov doubled down on Moscow’s long-stated claims that the West was involved.
“It is clear that to carry out such a terrorist attack, there was a command from the very top, as they say. The very top for the West is, of course, Washington,” Lavrov told Izvestia newspaper in a video interview published on its Telegram channel.
Lavrov, however, did not present clear evidence of his claim.
He said there were “attempts to blame everything on a group of drunken officers”, something he branded “not serious”.
The US had no immediate response to Lavrov’s latest assertion but has previously dismissed Russian suggestions of its involvement.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously suggested that the US was responsible for the attack, which Moscow has repeatedly described as a “sabotage”.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Ukraine’s top military commander at the time, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, oversaw the plan to blow up the pipelines used by Russia to deliver gas to Europe.
The paper claimed that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy approved of the plan but tried to stop it after the US’s CIA told him they were aware of the plans and warned against it.
On Wednesday, Poland confirmed that it had received a German arrest warrant for a Ukrainian man who is reportedly a suspect over the attack.
A sharp pressure drop on the pipelines under the Baltic Sea was registered on September 26, 2022 and seismologists detected explosions, triggering a wave of speculation about who sabotaged the multibillion-dollar project that carried Russian gas to Germany.
No one has claimed responsibility for the blasts, which occurred off the Danish island of Bornholm and ruptured three out of four lines of the system.