US Downplays Role in ’Crime of the Century’ Nord Stream Attacks, Ignores Environment: Russia

The statement seemed to reference the bombshell report by journalist Seymour Hersh that the United States was behind the attack.

“We see this as an obvious attempt… to soft-pedal information, which is dangerous for the United States, obtained from reputable journalists about the likely direct involvement of American security services in organizing the 'crime of the century' against critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea,” the embassy said.

The embassy also accused the United States and media outlets in the country of avoiding the issue of environmental disaster due to the pipeline sabotage.

"The problem of potentially colossal damage to the environment from incidents on the pipelines is completely hushed up in the local information space," the embassy said.

The statement said the damage was not limited to the large-scale fuel leaks due to act of sabotage.

"We would like to remind you of the hundreds of thousands of munitions with toxic chemical agents sunken at the bottom of the Baltic Sea after World War II... explosions in this water area threaten to turn into an unprecedented environmental disaster and irreparable damage to regional states," the embassy added.

In September 2022, underwater blasts occurred at three of the four strings of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines built to carry a combined 110 billion cubic meters of Russian gas to Europe annually.

Seymour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, in a series of articles, claimed the United States was behind the Nord Stream blasts.