Washington, Biden 'personally behind' Nord Stream attack: Duma Speaker
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Vyacheslav Volodin says investigations conducted by Germany, Denmark, and Sweden failed to produce any definitive results.
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A helicopter flies over the Nord Stream gas pipeline terminal prior to an inaugural ceremony for the first of Nord Stream's twin 1,224-kilometer gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea, in Lubmin November 8, 2011 (AFP)
The United States and President Joe Biden are "personally behind" the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines in 2022, Russian State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said on Thursday.
"Washington and Biden personally are behind the explosion of Nord Stream," Volodin said in a Telegram post.
The US capitalized on cutting off Western Europe's access to affordable Russian gas, compelling it to purchase gas from the US at significantly higher prices, he added.
Read more: Nord Stream was a 'legitimate target' for Ukraine: Czech president
The Russian senior official stated that investigations conducted by Germany, Denmark, and Sweden failed to produce any definitive results, while Russia was denied access to the case's progress. This prolonged the investigation, potentially to hide evidence.
"It turns out that it was not Washington that paid for the terrorist attack on Nord Stream, but the people of Germany ... As a result, they both [the US and German leaders] lost the trust of the population in their countries," Volodin wrote, adding that those responsible for the sabotage must be held accountable, emphasizing that there is no statute of limitations for this issue.
Russia has intensified its calls for Germany to provide full transparency in its investigation into the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticizing Berlin for concealing facts about the incident and insisting that Germany must stop "categorically refusing to present the facts that it couldn’t have failed to discover."
His statement came in response to Berlin concluding that three amateur divers were responsible for the Nord Stream 2 pipeline attack.
Russian Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Dmitry Polyanskiy has dismissed Germany's claims, calling such narratives naive and insisting on the necessity of an international investigation.
"It looks like those who drafted them were initially making up a scenario that only a child or a very naive person could believe," Polyanskiy said.
