MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday dismissed allegations that Ukrainians may very well be behind the blasts that damaged the Nord Stream gasoline pipelines within the Baltic Sea final yr, and insisted the U.S. was guilty.
Putin spoke after The New York Instances, The Washington Submit and German media printed tales final week citing unidentified U.S. and different officers as saying there was proof Ukraine, or at the very least Ukrainians, could have been accountable. The Ukrainian authorities has denied involvement.
Germany’s Die Zeit newspaper and German public broadcasters ARD and SWR reported that investigators believed 5 males and a lady used a yacht employed by a Ukrainian-owned firm in Poland to hold out the assault. German federal prosecutors confirmed {that a} boat was searched in January however haven’t confirmed the reported findings.
Putin rejected the notion as “sheer nonsense.”
“Such an explosion, so highly effective and at such depth, may solely be carried out by specialists backed by the complete potential of a state that has related applied sciences,” he stated in televised remarks.
The Russian chief insisted that he was satisfied the U.S. was behind the explosion, saying it had an curiosity to halt provides of low cost Russian pure gasoline to Germany and to offer it with dearer liquefied pure gasoline.
The Kremlin final week described the claims about Ukrainian involvement within the explosions as a part of a cover-up by the West.
September’s explosions that hit the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines rendered them inoperable and brought about vital leaks of gasoline that was idle within the pipelines. Nobody claimed accountability.
U.S. officers initially recommended that Russia could have been guilty. Russia blamed the U.S. and Britain. Investigations by European nations, together with Denmark, via whose waters the pipeline travels, and Germany have but to yield conclusive outcomes.