Berlin Keeps Russia in Dark about Nord Stream Blasts Probe: Ambassador

"Despite our numerous inquiries, the (German) authorities do not consider it necessary to share the details of the probe into this unprecedented terror attack of September 2022 with us. Naturally, this raises questions about the impartiality of the investigation. It is hard to believe that it is impossible to solve a large-scale, unprecedented terror attack on the strategic European infrastructure having all necessary technical tools of the 21st century," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel, TASS reported.

"Instead, they are disseminating ridiculous, absurd scenarios in the mass media to re-direct responsibility. But everyone remembers who promised to wreck these gas pipelines and who benefits from this in the long run," he added.

On September 27, 2022, Nord Stream AG reported "unprecedented damage" on three strings of the offshore gas pipelines of the Nord Stream system. Later, Swedish seismologists said they had identified two explosions on the route of the Nord Stream pipelines on September 26, 2022. Following the incident, the Russian prosecutor general’s office opened a case on charges of international terrorism. Germany, Denmark, and Sweden launched their own national probes but refused to involve Russia.

On February 8, 2023, US investigative journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh published an article that claimed, citing anonymous sources, that US Navy divers had planted explosive devices under the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines under the cover of the BALTOPS exercise in June 2022, and that the Norwegians then activated the bombs three months later. According to the journalist, the decision to conduct the operation was made by US President Joe Biden personally, following nine months of discussions with White House national security advisers.