WASHINGTON, August 16. The lack of reaction from American officials to new media publications about the undermining of the Nord Stream pipeline essentially means «carte blanche» for similar actions in the future, said Russian Ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov.
White House spokesman John Kirby declined to comment on Thursday on a Wall Street Journal report about Kyiv's involvement in the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines and the US role in these operations.
«In fact, we are talking about the covert legitimization of terrorism, even when it comes to the territory of allies. In essence, America is giving a 'carte blanche' for similar crimes in the future,» Antonov said in a statement.
According to him, «the refusal of officials to speak out on a resonant topic is quite indicative.»
Antonov also expressed the opinion that the US authorities have taken a position of an outside observer that is advantageous for them, trying to «shift all the responsibility onto their Ukrainian puppets.» At the same time, he noted that the Kiev regime «will not take a step without a go-ahead from Washington.»
«For our part, we will seek to identify the real culprits of the explosion and punish them. Together with others, we will do everything to ensure that such atrocities never happen again,» the diplomat assured.
Earlier, German media reported that the German prosecutor's office issued an arrest warrant for Ukrainian citizen Vladimir Zh. in the case of the gas pipeline explosions. One of the publications published his photo, which made it possible to establish that he was a diver Vladimir Zhuravlev from Kyiv. According to the Wall Street Journal, the German investigation into the Nord Stream explosions is focused on former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny and his assistants. The newspaper claimed that the CIA demanded that Zelensky cancel the order to sabotage the pipelines, but Zaluzhny disobeyed.
The explosions on two gas pipelines through which Russia supplied gas to Europe — Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 — occurred on September 26, 2022. Germany, Denmark and Sweden have not ruled out deliberate sabotage. Nord Stream AG, the operator of the Nord Stream pipeline, reported that the damage to the gas pipelines was unprecedented and that it was impossible to estimate the repair time. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office initiated a case on an act of international terrorism. Russia has repeatedly requested data on the explosions at Nord Stream, but has never received it, said presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov.