Foreign

Russia has claimed British Navy blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines

Published

1 year ago

October 29, 2022

Russia has accused the United Kingdom’s Royal Navy of being responsible for explosions that affected the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines last month..

Russia’s defense ministry made the claim on Saturday but did not provide evidence to support the statement. Russia has previously blamed the West for the explosions but this is the first time the government has ascribed blame to a particular country.

“According to available information, representatives of this unit of the British Navy took part in the planning, provision and implementation of a terrorist attack in the Baltic Sea on September 26 this year – blowing up the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines,” Russia’s defense ministry said.

The U.K. is a key U.S. ally and a leading member of the NATO military alliance and has imposed harsh sanctions on Russia along with the U.S. and other Western allies since Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

The U.K. Ministry of Defence (MOD) responded to the accusation on Twitter.

“To detract from their disastrous handling of the illegal invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defence is resorting to peddling false claims of an epic scale,” the MOD said in a statement that was also provided to Newsweek.

“This invented story, says more about arguments going on inside the Russian Government than it does about the West,” the ministry said.

Russia’s defense ministry made the claim in a post on Telegram on Saturday morning where they also provided updates on the ongoing war in Ukraine and similarly accused the Ukrainian government of carrying out “a terrorist attack against the ships of the Black Sea Fleet and civilian ships.”

Chris Parry, a retired U.K. Royal Navy rear admiral, spoke to Sky News on Saturday shortly after Russia’s defense ministry made the claim and dismissed the accusation as “a straight lie.”

Parry said: “You always have to be suspicious of what the Russian Defense Ministry says. It’s hardly the ministry of truth and Russian propaganda right now always accuses everybody else of doing what they, in fact, have done.”

He added that there was “no capability for the Royal Navy or anybody in the U.K. offshore industry to be able to blow up those pipelines. It’s a straight lie and we all know the Russian’s did it.”

Both Nord Stream pipelines were damaged in September in explosions that resulted in leaks into the Baltic Sea. Neither pipeline was operational at the time, however, and Nord Stream 2 has never been brought into operation because the German government agreed to halt the project on February 22, two days before the invasion of Ukraine after weeks of speculation that Russia would attack its neighbor.

Nord Stream 2 had been completed and filled with 300 million cubic meters of gas before the project was canceled and some gas was still contained in the pipeline at the time of the explosion.

The governments of Denmark and Sweden later said that the leaks in the two Nord Stream pipelines were caused by deliberate acts of sabotage, while President Joe Biden also said the damage was “a deliberate act of sabotage.”