Moscow raises concerns over alleged Truss message to Blinken
Russia's Foreign Ministry has weighed in on speculation that former British prime minister, Liz Truss sent a suspicious message to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken after the Nord Stream undersea pipelines were damaged.
London should officially comment on a claim that Truss messaged “It’s done” to America’s top diplomat right after powerful blasts disabled the gas pipelines that run between Russia and Germany, spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Tuesday.
She stated that “millions of people around the world have the right to know what happened to world energy security” and whether the US and UK had a role in the attack.
The claim appears to have originated from Finnish-German tech businessman and social media personality Kim Dotcom. Last week, he responded to reports in the British media about a possible hack of Truss’ phone, by alleging that Moscow based its accusations against London and Washington on information it obtained from the device.
Dotcom speculated that Truss messaged “It’s done” to Blinken “a minute after the pipeline blew up and before anybody else knew,” without offering any evidence of the scenario.
How do the Russians know that the UK blew up the North Stream pipelines in partnership with the US?Because @trussliz used her iPhone to send a message to @SecBlinken saying “It’s done” a minute after the pipeline blew up and before anybody else knew?iCloud admin access rocks!
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) October 30, 2022
The story about the purported hack was printed by the Mail on Sunday based on anonymous security sources. The newspaper claimed that the culprits obtained a year’s worth of Truss’ highly sensitive communications with British and foreign officials and presumed that the hackers were working for Russia.
The Nord Stream pipelines were damaged by powerful explosions in late September when Truss was still serving her record-short tenure as the British prime minister. Moscow noted that the US was the party that obviously benefited most from the disruption, which undercut the EU’s ability to get supplies of natural gas from Russia. America is now selling its own more expensive liquified natural gas to Europe.
The claim that Britain had a hand in blowing up the pipelines was made by the Russian Defense Ministry last Saturday when it reported details about a drone attack on the Russian Black Sea fleet.
The ministry claimed that it was launched by Ukraine with the assistance of “British specialists” based in the city of Ochakov. Members of the same “unit of the Royal Navy took part in planning, supporting and executing” the attack on the pipelines, the Russian military explained.
The UK Ministry of Defence reacted to the allegation in a tweet that accused its Russian counterpart of “peddling false claims of an epic scale.”
