Moscow dismissed accusations that it was behind the alleged Tuesday sabotage of the Nord Stream energy pipelines as stupid and absurd Wednesday.
Three unprecedented leaks sprang from the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines at the bottom of the Baltic Sea on Monday. Russia, the U.S. and Germany agree that sabotage is a possible cause of the leaks, but Ukraine accuses Moscow of carrying out the deed.
Gas leak from NS- 1 NordStream 1 is nothing more than a terrorist attack planned by Russia and an act of aggression towards the EU. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak said on Tuesday that Russia wants to destabilise the economic situation in Europe and cause pre-winter panic.
During a Wednesday press conference, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov brushed aside the accusation as stupid.
It's quite predictable and predictably stupid to give voice to these kinds of narratives — predictably stupid and absurd, Peskov said. This is a big problem for us because both lines of Nord Stream 2 are filled with gas - the entire system is ready to pump gas and the gas is very expensive now the gas is flying off into the air. He said that they were not, we lost a route for gas supplies to Europe.
Germany and Denmark have argued that sabotage is by far the most likely scenario. Seismologists reordered underwater explosions just prior to the leaks on Monday.
Secretary of State Tony Blinken stated that sabotaging the pipelines was in no one's interest Tuesday. The White House National Security Council said that the U.S. would not speculate on the cause. According to Insider, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen sympathized with Germany's suspicions of telling reporters that a cause other than sabotage would be hard to imagine.
Swedish and Danish repair teams won't be able to fix the leaks for at least a week, they say.
Neither of the pipelines was operating at the time of the damage. Since July, Nord Stream 1 had only 20% capacity and stopped service at the end of August. The international sanctions against Russia made maintenance impossible, according to operators.
Nord Stream 2, meanwhile, has never entered official operation due to Germany's refusal to certify its completion last year. The project was stopped just days before Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24.