West rejects Putin’s gas sabotage claim
Jan M Olsen |
Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of sabotaging Russia-built natural gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea to Germany, a charge vehemently denied by the United States and its allies.
Nordic nations say the undersea blasts that damaged the pipelines this week and have led to huge methane leaks involved several hundred kilograms of explosives.
The claim by Putin came ahead of an emergency meeting Friday at the UN Security Council in New York on the attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, and as Norwegian researchers published a map projecting that a huge plume of methane from the damaged pipelines will travel over large swaths of the Nordic region.
Speaking on Friday in Moscow at a ceremony to annex four regions of Ukraine into Russia, Putin claimed “Anglo-Saxons” in the West had turned from imposing sanctions on Russia to “terror attacks”, sabotaging the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in an attempt to “destroy the European energy infrastructure”.
He said “those who profit from it have done it”, without naming a specific country.
In Washington, US President Joe Biden dismissed Putin’s pipeline claims as outlandish.
“It was a deliberate act of sabotage. And now the Russians are pumping out disinformation and lies. We will work with our allies to get to the bottom (of) precisely what happened,” Biden promised, adding that divers would be sent to inspect the pipelines.
“Just don’t listen to what Putin’s saying. What he’s saying we know is not true.”
US officials said the Putin claim was trying to shift attention from his annexation on Friday of parts of Ukraine.
“We’re not going to let Russia’s disinformation distract us or the world from its transparently fraudulent attempt to annex sovereign Ukrainian territory,” White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said.
Moscow says it wants a thorough international probe to assess the damage to the pipelines, which were filled with gas but not supplying it to Europe. Putin’s spokesman has said “it looks like a terror attack, probably conducted on a state level”.
European nations, which have been reeling under soaring energy prices caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have noted it is Russia, not Europe, that benefits from chaos in the energy markets and spiking prices for energy.
The US has long opposed the pipelines and repeatedly urged Germany to halt them, saying they increased Europe’s energy dependence on Russia and decreased its security.
Since the war in Ukraine began in February, Russia has cut supplies of natural gas sent to Europe to heat homes, generate electricity and run factories. European leaders have accused Putin of using “energy blackmail” to divide them in their strong support for Ukraine.
Russia stopped gas flows through the 1224-kilometre Nord Stream 1 earlier this month, blaming technical problems, while the parallel Nord Stream 2 pipeline had never opened.
Denmark and Sweden, meanwhile, said on Friday the explosions that rocked the Baltic Sea ahead of the huge methane leaks from the pipelines “probably corresponded to an explosive load of several hundred kilos”.
The leaks occurred in international waters and “have caused plumes of gas rising to the surface”, the Scandinavian countries wrote in a letter to the United Nations.
NATO warned it would retaliate for any attacks on the critical infrastructure of its 30 member countries and joined other Western officials in citing sabotage as the likely cause of damage.
Denmark is a NATO member, and Sweden is in the process of joining the military alliance. Both say the pipelines were deliberately attacked.
AP
