The British Navy stands accused by the Russian authorities, with out proof, of blowing up the Nord Stream pure gasoline pipeline underneath the Baltic Sea, a declare the U.Ok. rejected as “false.”
“Based on accessible data, representatives … of the British Navy took half within the planning, provision and implementation of a terrorist assault within the Baltic Sea on September 26 this 12 months — blowing up the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gasoline pipelines,” the Russian Protection Ministry stated on Saturday, based on media stories.
The accusation didn’t embody any additional data or proof to help claims of state sabotage. The Russian authorities additionally stated that U.Ok. operatives helped plan a drone assault on its fleet on the Black Sea port of Sevastopol in Crimea on Saturday.
The U.Ok. Protection Ministry shortly denied Moscow’s declare.
“To detract from their disastrous dealing with of the unlawful invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Protection is resorting to peddling false claims of an epic scale,” the British ministry stated in a tweet. “This invented story says extra about arguments happening contained in the Russian authorities than it does concerning the West.”
Russia had already blamed the West usually phrases for undersea explosions that broken the Nord Stream pipes final month. These blasts have probably rendered the power infrastructure unusable, based on the German authorities.
An investigation by Danish and Swedish authorities is ongoing into the explosions, which came about inside the 2 nations’ unique financial zones near the Baltic Sea island of Bornholm.
Russia had already stopped gasoline transit by way of the pipeline sparking considerations earlier this 12 months that it could use gasoline provide to blackmail Europe as its brutal battle on Ukraine continues.
Whereas the primary part of Nord Stream had been working for practically 11 years, the second part of the venture — dubbed Nord Stream 2 — had not but been introduced into industrial operation.
