The US had a clear motive to orchestrate the explosions at the Nord Stream twin gas pipelines in 2022 and the means to do so, Russian President Vladimir Putin told American journalist Tucker Carlson in an interview aired on Thursday.
The pipelines built to deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea were targeted in September 2022. Several EU countries launched investigations into the attacks, but no results have been published.
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Asked directly by Carlson who blew up the pipelines, Putin replied: “You, of course,” referring to the United States.
“Maybe you personally have an alibi, but the CIA doesn’t have one.”
“I won’t go into the details but, as the saying goes, in such cases you must search for whoever has a vested interest [in the sabotage],” Putin said, adding that “who had the ability” to carry out the bombing on the seabed was a key question.
“Not everyone can access the Baltic Sea seabed and carry out an explosion,” Putin added.
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The Russian leader added that he had been “surprised” by Germany’s silence on the matter.
Putin and senior officials in Moscow have been saying that the US had the most to gain from the sabotage and pointed to Washington’s public opposition to the construction of the pipelines. Moscow accused the West of stonewalling the investigation.
In 2023, award-winning US journalist Seymour Hersh accused the US of bombing the Nord Stream. The White House dismissed the allegations at the time as “complete fiction.”
Following Hersh’s claim, several Western media outlets reported that Ukrainian citizens had been involved in the explosion. Kiev has denied having any ties to the sabotage.