A senior US official said the US was not involved in the damage to the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines carrying Russian gas earlier this week.
speak at a briefing with reporter A senior Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday that “the jury is still out” on what really happened to the pipeline that carries Russian natural gas to Germany.
“I think many of our partners either determined or believed it was sabotage,” the official said. “I just — I’m not at the point where I can tell you one way or the other.”
When asked if U.S. involvement could be ruled out, officials said, Said “We were absolutely not involved,” he said.
German and European Union officials suspect the damage to the two pipelines was sabotage. The incident was reported Monday night as the line was seen spewing natural gas into the Baltic Sea.
Danish Defense Minister Morten Bozkov met with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday to discuss pipeline damage. Both said it was sabotage, but did not publicly say who was responsible.
“There are reasons to be concerned about the security situation in the Baltic region,” Bozkov said in a statement to the press. “Russia has a significant military presence in the Baltic region and we expect them to continue their armed strikes.”
No country or state has claimed responsibility for this incident. Some officials have posted on social media that Moscow was behind the incident, but the West has failed to point to Russia’s responsibility.
“All available information indicates that these leaks were the result of deliberate acts,” Josep Borrell, the European Union’s head of foreign policy, said in a statement. “Deliberate disruption of Europe’s energy infrastructure is completely unacceptable and requires a strong and cohesive response.”
Russian officials said the FSB’s security services were investigating the incident as an act of “international terrorism,” officials told Interfax. Also, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday that the proposal for Russia to damage its own gas pipelines was “predictably ridiculous”, arguing that Moscow would damage its own infrastructure. Reuters reported.
In a briefing with reporters, Peskov also suggested that the US government may have been involved. I paid attention to what you said in February.
“explosion”
Björn Lund, head of the Swedish National Earthquake Network at Uppsala University, told NPR on Wednesday, “It’s very clear from the seismic records that these are blast waves and not of natural origin.”
“These are not earthquakes,” he added. “They are not underwater landslides.” Also in an interview with Swedish television, Lund said, “There is no doubt these were explosions.”
HI Sutton, who wrote about the submarine warfare, said that the area where the explosion occurred was in relatively shallow water. Divers and unmanned vehicles would have had easy access, he wrote.
“The leak is located near Bornholm, Denmark, at 54.8762°, 15.4099°. [approximately] 70 meters of water,” he wrote on Twitter. [exclusive economic zone] disputed here.
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Jack Phillips is a New York-based breaking news reporter for the Epoch Times.