The West considers Russia to be the saboteur of the two Nord Stream pipelines. In Moscow they are working on a counter-narrative. Because the US has always been against the gas pipelines, Moscow is now pointing to US President Biden. “Ridiculous,” says Washington.
The US government has dismissed as “ridiculous” hints by Russia that Washington could be behind the Nord Stream gas pipeline leaks. “We all know that Russia has a long history of spreading misinformation, and it’s doing it again here,” said White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson.
The spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry had previously indicated that US President Joe Biden could have ordered sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea. “The US President must answer the question of whether the United States has implemented its threat,” wrote Maria Zakharova in the online service Telegram. “Europe must know the truth.”
Zakharova referred to statements made by Biden in February during a visit to Washington by Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Several weeks before the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine began, Biden warned that if Russia invaded the neighboring country, “there will be no more Nord Stream 2”. He “promised” that, emphasized the President, without giving any further details. “We will put an end to this.”
At that time, the question was whether the USA could try to impose sanctions on the operating company Nord Stream 2 AG to prevent the pipeline from being put into operation. It was then the federal government that put an end to Nord Stream 2: Shortly before the start of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Berlin put the project on hold. Scholz was reacting to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recognition of the independence of the separatist areas in eastern Ukraine.
The White House emphasized on Wednesday that Biden had put strong pressure on the federal government to bury Nord Stream 2. The US had long been adamant opponents of the pipeline project, which it saw as a Kremlin geopolitical tool.
