Germany must provide full disclosure over Nord Stream bombings – Lavrov
Germany must stop concealing facts about the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines and must provide full transparency over its investigation into the incident, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has insisted. Moscow has already filed an official complaint against Berlin’s probe into the bombings.
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which were used to transport Russian natural gas to Germany and other parts of Western Europe, were sabotaged in September 2022 in a series of explosions under the Baltic Sea near the Danish island of Bornholm. The perpetrators have yet to be officially identified.
Moscow has accused Washington of orchestrating the attack, while Kiev has maintained that Russia blew up its own infrastructure. Sections of the Western media, meanwhile, have claimed that the sabotage was carried out by a “pro-Ukrainian group.”
In an interview with Izvestia published on Monday, Lavrov stressed that Germany, which has been investigating the incident, must “stop categorically refusing to present the facts that it couldn’t have failed to discover.”
He also suggested that when information formally requested by Russia is not presented officially, but instead appears in news articles, it raises “suspicions that all of this is staged” and that “the entire operation is designed to somehow divert public opinion” from the “true perpetrators, culprits, and clients [of the attack].”
Moscow will formally insist on a transparent international investigation into the bombings, Lavrov noted, claiming that it was “shameful” for Germany to “silently accept” that it had been deprived of a long-term energy supply crucial for its development as a country.
“Germany has swallowed it silently, without any comment,” Lavrov said.
Russian Foreign Ministry official Oleg Tyapkin told RIA Novosti that Moscow has officially filed a complaint with Berlin over its investigation into the Nord Stream bombings, and has “raised the issue of Germany and other affected countries fulfilling their obligation stemming from UN anti-terrorist conventions.”
He noted that the German authorities have issued a warrant for just one suspect in the attack, a Ukrainian citizen who is allegedly part of a group from the same country. Meanwhile, according to Tyapkin, German media have continued to suggest that the suspects may not even be connected to any particular country.
It appears likely that the German investigation “will be closed without identifying the true culprits behind the Nord Stream bombings,” Tyapkin stated, stressing that Russia would not accept this outcome.
