Moscow slams West for ‘fantastic hypocrisy’
The West is spinning incidents in the Baltic Sea as purported evidence of a Russian threat, while putting a smoke screen over real attacks that undermine European energy security, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Thursday. The EU and NATO have alleged that Moscow was behind cases of Baltic sea power and communication cables being damaged in recent months.
Western officials have argued the incidents justify bolstering NATO's regional presence and sanctioning the so-called ‘shadow fleet’ – ships allegedly involved in Russian oil exports in defiance of unilateral restrictions issued by Western nations.
Western claims that Moscow is waging a sabotage campaign in the Baltic Sea fit a wider pattern of baseless accusations against Russia, Zakharova said. She told a regular media briefing: “Accusations directed against our nation are being habitually voiced before the circumstances of what had happened are established. We have seen this many times.”
She accused the West of “fantastic hypocrisy,” pointing to what she described as the “non-investigation” of the September 2022 attack on the Nord Stream pipelines. The energy links built under the Baltic Sea were intended to deliver Russian natural gas directly to Germany, before being blown up in what Moscow calls a “terrorist attack.”
The US benefited the most from the incident and was likely behind it directly or through a proxy, Russian officials have claimed. In early 2022, US President Joe Biden declared that “there will be no Nord Stream,” if Russia used military force against Ukraine.
Zakharova criticized Brussels for swiftly demanding action against Russia over the cable incidents after showing no such reaction to the Nord Stream sabotage. “It seems that since Biden said that he would destroy this project, the EU believes that what happened was all proper,” she said.
She also condemned the EU for reacting meekly to Kiev’s drone attack on a Russian compressor station last week. The facility pumps natural gas under the Black Sea to Türkiye and multiple consumers in Southern Europe.
Attacks like that are seemingly being “condoned by the part of the EU, which has been acting against the interests of their own people for many years,” she stated. Such people would rather stoke fear in Europe over the “myth” of supposedly dangerous Russian ships than address genuine security threats, she added.
