Russia renews call on Sweden to share Nord Stream probe findings

Russia has renewed its call on Sweden to put forward its findings from the ongoing investigation into the explosions that damaged the undersea Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea in September last year.

"Almost five months have passed since the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines. All this time, however, the Swedish authorities, as if on cue, remain silent," Russia's embassy to Sweden said on the Telegram messaging platform.

"What is the leadership of Sweden so afraid of," it hastened to add, raising questions about the delay in disclosing the results of the probe. 

On Tuesday, the United Nations Security Council is scheduled to discuss the "sabotage" following Moscow's request for an independent investigation of attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

On September 26, 2022, a series of clandestine explosions occurred on the pipelines, knocking out three of the four strings of the Nord Stream network, off the coast of the Danish island of Bornholm.

Two of the pipelines, known collectively as Nord Stream 1, had been providing Germany and much of Western Europe with cheap Russian natural gas for more than a decade. A second pair of pipelines, known as Nord Stream 2, was not yet operational.

Following the blasts, Denmark, Germany, and Sweden conducted investigations into the blasts. The preliminary results of a joint probe by Sweden and Denmark showed that the blasts had been "intentional sabotage," but the responsibility was not assigned to any party.

American journalist Seymour Hersh in a detailed report on his blog last week claimed that the bombing of the Nord Stream underwater gas pipelines had been directly ordered by US President Joe Biden and carried out by the CIA with the help of the US Navy.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist alleged that US Navy deep-sea divers planted high-powered C4 explosives under the gas pipelines under the cover of NATO naval exercises and that the Norwegian military then activated the explosives remotely when they received the relevant order.

The White House rejected the report as "utterly false and complete fiction", but could not escape the scrutiny and calls for accountability. 

The Russian embassy in Sweden reiterated Moscow's stance that the United States was behind the blasts affecting the multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects that carried Russian gas to Germany.

Russia's deputy UN envoy Dmitry Polyanskiy said on Telegram that a vote on a draft proposal calling for a probe would take place by the end of the week.

Russia's state-run TASS news agency reported that China's permanent representative to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, had told reporters that Beijing supports the Russian draft proposal.

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