Given the tricky nature of pulling off a sabotage attack against the Nord Stream pipelines undetected, most analysts agree that only state actors could have carried it out.
Russia has been keen to cast the blame in the direction of the US.
This morning the Russian foreign ministry has, according to the RIA Novosti news agency, issued a brief statement saying that the “incident on the Nord Stream occurred in a zone controlled by American intelligence”.
Overnight the Russian embassy in the US
issued a statement on Telegram again drawing attention to “the promises made by President Biden to ‘bring an end’ to the Nord Stream 2 project”, and saying:
We note the attempts by some US legislators to put blame on Russia for the incidents. Perhaps, they have a better view from the top of Capitol Hill. But if that is the case, they must also have seen the US warships’ activities at the very site of the Russian infrastructure disruption just the day before. Or noticed drones and helicopters fly over there. Or observed US navy exercises with underwater explosives that have been conducted in the same area some time ago.
What is obvious to us is that those who ponder about the incident seem to forget to ask the main question: who benefits from the pipelines’ rupture? For our part, we insist on the need for a comprehensive and objective examination of the circumstances of the unprecedented attacks on Russian pipelines.
Russian sources have repeatedly referenced the words of Joe Biden and his administration earlier this year as the US and Germany threatened that Nord Stream 2 would not be opened if Russia invaded
Ukraine.
In January the state department spokesperson Ned Price
said: “I want to be very clear: if Russia invades Ukraine one way or another, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward. I’m not going to get into the specifics. We will work with Germany to ensure it does not move forward.”
Several days later, on 8 February, at a joint press event with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, Biden said the pipeline project would be ended if Russia put troops on the ground in Ukraine, saying: “If Russia invades, that means tanks or troops crossing the border of Ukraine again, then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”