Foreign Minister Lavrov Says Germany Must Answer All Russian Questions Regarding Nord Stream Pipeline Attacks

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. (Wikimedia Commons/US Department of State)

JAKARTA - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday Germany should answer all questions posed by Russia regarding a terrorist attack on the Nord Stream pipeline.

"(Germany) must answer all questions. First, they must stop completely refusing to convey the facts they cannot find. When at least some of the information we asked for was not provided through official channels, but appeared in newspaper articles, and simultaneously in three, I think, German magazine and in the Wall Street Journal in the United States, this raises the thought that all of this was planned beforehand," Foreign Minister Lavrov told the daily Izvestia., reported TASS August 19.

He further pointed out that Ukraine would not be able to carry out attacks on the Nord Stream without US support.

"Now we are witnessing an attempt to blame everything on a group of drunk officers who, along with businessmen who party with them, hire someone or decide to learn their own diving skills. This is not serious," Lavrov said.

"Even if one of the people mentioned in the German press, a Ukrainian, somehow gets involved in this, it's clear that they can't do it alone. It's clear that such a terrorist attack requires orders from above, from above once, as we say, and the West's top of course is Washington," he explained.

Foreign Minister Lavrov believes, "all these operations are designed to distract the public both in Germany and around the world from the real perpetrators, the perpetrators of crimes, and the final beneficiaries of these terrorist acts."

"We will demand a transparent international investigation," he stressed.

"This is a disgrace for Germany to stand still accepting how the country was seized by a long-term energy supply base and, as a result, economic prosperity, which, in general, is the key to its development for decades in the form of Russian gas supply at affordable prices. Germany is secretly, without any comment," he said.

Russia's state news agency RIA reported on Monday that Russia had filed a complaint with Germany over the investigation into the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosion after a prime suspect escaped arrest in Poland.

German media reported last week that German prosecutors had identified a Ukrainian diving instructor as a suspect in the Nord Stream sabotage attack and had issued a warrant to arrest him in Poland.

Poland received a German warrant, but the suspect has left the country because Germany did not include his name in the wanted person's database, Polish prosecutors told Reuters.

Moscow believes Germany's investigation will be closed without identifying those responsible, RIA reported, citing Oleg Tyapkin, head of the European department at the Russian Foreign Ministry.

"We have raised the issue of Germany and other affected countries to fulfill their obligations under the UN anti-terrorist convention," Tyapkin said.

"We have officially made appropriate claims on the matter bilaterally, including to Berlin," he continued.

A spokesman for the German Foreign Ministry rejected the complaint.

"We are in contact with Russian authorities," he said, without elaborating on the ongoing investigation.

It is known that the billions of dollars worth of Nord Stream 1 and 2 Pipes transporting gas under the Baltic Sea broke out due to a series of explosions in September 2022, seven months after Russia launched a massive invasion of Ukraine.

No one has claimed responsibility for the explosion. Russia has repeatedly said the attack was carried out by the United States and Britain, which both denied.