Lavrov Says 'Clear' That US Ordered Nord Stream Attacks, Demands Answers From Germany
Russia is calling out the last several days of Western media reporting on the Nord Stream gas pipeline bombing as essentially a limited hangout.
Suddenly all of this 'new information' has come out of the German investigation and leaked to the press, and seems by design an attempt to shield both the Ukrainian president and Washington from any culpability, as we've been detailing. Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has responded to the WSJ's recent reporting, saying Monday it was "clear" the US ordered the Sept 2022 attacks on the vital Russia to Germany gas pipelines.
The central thesis of last week's Wall Street Journal report is that a Ukrainian crew conducted the covert attacks with the oversight Kiev's then-military commander-in-chief, but that Zelensky tried to stop it when he got a call from the CIA. But the general went 'rogue' and carried out his own op anyway.
Lavrov responded during a visit to Azerbaijan on Monday by stressing "It is clear that to carry out such a terrorist attack, there was a command from the very top, as they say. For the West, the very top is, of course, Washington."
As to the WSJ's narrative that the idea to blow up the pipelines was hatched among Ukrainian officers and businessmen having a wild boozy night, Lavrov told the Izvestia outlet that the this is "not serious."
Lavrov further expressed frustration and anger at Germany, posing that Moscow has long demanded real answers of the German investigation, but has been stonewalled. Instead, German officials are now making sensational assertions to international media, he complained:
"Germany must answer all questions. First, they must stop categorically refusing to present the facts that they could not but discover. When at least some of the information we demand is not provided through official channels, but pops up in newspaper articles, and simultaneously in three, I think, German periodicals and in the Wall Street Journal in the United States, this induces the thought that all this was plotted in advance," Lavrov said.
Lavrov said the sophistication of such a deep underwater bombing would have to have American or government intelligence or military support.
"Now we are witnessing attempts to blame everything on a group of some drunken officers who, together with businessmen who was partying with them, either hired someone or decided to learn diving skills themselves. This is not serious," Lavrov asserted in the comments.
"Even if any of the persons mentioned in the German press, Ukrainians, were somehow involved in this, it is clear that they could not have done that alone. It is clear that such a terrorist attack required orders from on high, from the very top, as we say, and the top for the West is Washington, of course," the top diplomat added.
Lavrov then concluded that one thing remains certain... "this whole operation was conceived to somehow divert the public’s attention both in Germany and in the whole world from the true perpetrators, the culprits, and the end beneficiaries of this terrorist act," he explained.
Exclusive image of the drunken Ukrainian diver placing the bomb on the Nord Stream pipeline. pic.twitter.com/V81RTle36m
— Thomas Fazi (@battleforeurope) August 15, 2024
"We will insist on a transparent international investigation," he underscored. "It is a disgrace for Germany to just silently accept the way it was deprived of the long-term basis of energy supplies and, consequently, of economic prosperity, which was, in general, the key to its development for many decades in the form of steady supplies of reasonably priced Russian gas. Germany [swallowed [this] silently, without any comment."
However, as we noted earlier, some Germany politicians are angry enough over the recent 'revelations' to demand repayment from Ukraine for the lasting and permanent damage done to the German economy, and the brunt borne by the German taxpayer.