MOSCOW, July 15. /TASS/. The West must identify those who ordered the terrorist attack on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, rather than focusing solely on the perpetrators, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing.
She pointed to a German federal prosecutor's press release stating that an indictment had been filed on June 30 against "Ukrainian national Sergey K." in connection with the September 2022 sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea. According to the statement, he and his accomplices, all military personnel, organized and carried out the attack on instructions from Ukrainian state authorities.
The defendant is charged with "aiding and abetting a war crime through the commission of several criminal offenses, including an attack on a civilian object, causing a blast using explosives, destruction of a structure, and disrupting the operation of a public utility." However, Zakharova argued that "given the German authorities' refusal, in violation of their international obligations, to provide legal assistance under criminal law and counterterrorism conventions or cooperate with Russian law enforcement in investigating this crime, it is difficult to speak of the impartiality of the German justice system or the soundness of its conclusions."
