NATO should hold emergency summit over Nord Stream explosion: Russia
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Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova calls on NATO to convene an emergency meeting over the Nord Stream explosion.
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Nord Stream gas pipeline explosion. (AP)
Russia has requested that NATO, led by the United States, convene an emergency meeting to discuss the recent findings regarding the September explosions at the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
"There are more than enough facts here: the explosion of the pipelines, the presence of a motive, circumstantial evidence obtained by journalists," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.
"So when will an emergency NATO summit meet to review the situation?" she asked.
Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh claimed in a blog post on Wednesday that US navy divers, acting under the guise of the Baltops exercise, destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines at the request of US President Joe Biden.
The White House rejected the claims and described them as "utterly false and complete fiction".
An explosion occurred in the exclusive economic zone of Sweden and Denmark on September 26. Seismologists in Sweden recorded two explosions along the pipeline routes.
Sweden and Denmark concluded that the strategic pipelines that transport Russian gas to Germany were deliberately blown up, but did not specify who was responsible.
Russia claimed that the countries "have something to hide" and are deliberately keeping Russia out of the investigation.
The incident was described as an "act of sabotage" by the US and NATO. Moscow blamed the mysterious explosion on the West. The explosion caused a crack in the gas pipe, and neither side has yet presented evidence.
The Russian Prosecutor General's Office opened a criminal case based on international terrorism charges.
US planted explosives that destroyed Nord Stream
Earlier this week, Pulitzer award winner Seymour Hersh said on February 8th that US Navy divers planted explosives to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines last year.
"Last June, the Navy divers, operating under the cover of a widely publicized mid-summer NATO exercise known as BALTOPS 22, planted the remotely triggered explosives that, three months later, destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines, according to a source with direct knowledge of the operational planning," Hersh wrote in his Substack newsletter.
The White House responded and dismissed the claims as "false and complete fiction." Hersh later confirmed to the Russian news agency Sputnik that he authored the investigative report in question.
"Of course," Hersh told Sputnik when asked whether he authored the article published on a Substack account created shortly before its publication.
Flightradar24 data showed in late September that US military helicopters habitually and on numerous occasions circled for hours over the site of the Nord Stream pipeline incident near Bornholm Island.
