US and UK ‘directly involved’ in Nord Stream sabotage – Russia’s spy chief

The US and British intelligence services were involved in the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, the head of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), Sergey Naryshkin, has said.

The key energy connector, built to deliver Russian gas to Germany and the rest of Western Europe, was ruptured by explosions at the bottom of the Baltic Sea in September 2022.

“It has long been known that the West uses international terrorism as a tool to achieve its geopolitical goals. However, the Western intelligence agencies themselves also do not hesitate to resort to terrorist methods in fighting their opponents,” Naryshkin told the heads of security agencies and intelligence services from former Soviet republics on Tuesday.

According to the Russian spy chief, the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines was one example of such methods.

“The SVR possesses information about a direct involvement of professional saboteurs from the Anglo-American special services in this terrorist attack,” he stated.

Naryshkin noted that Nord Stream was a joint project between companies from Russia and other European countries, intended to provide for “an uninterrupted supply of affordable Russian gas to Europe.”

“Meaning that Russia built it together with constructively minded Europeans, and the Anglo-Americans blew it up,” he said.

The SVR head insisted that “destroying Nord Stream was an obsession not only of the Democratic, but also of the Republican administration in the US.”