MOSCOW (Reuters) – A blog by a U.S. investigative journalist alleging the United States was behind the explosions that ruptured the Nord Stream gas pipelines should become the basis for an international investigation, Russia’s top lawmaker said on Thursday.
The White House on Wednesday dismissed the report, published by U.S. investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, which said an attack on the pipelines was carried out last September at the direction of U.S. President Joe Biden.
“The published facts should become the basis for an international investigation, bringing Biden and his accomplices to justice,” Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the Russian State Duma, said.
Volodin said the United States should pay “compensation to countries affected by the terrorist attack.”
Moscow, without providing evidence, has repeatedly said the West was behind the explosions affecting the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines last September – multibillion-dollar infrastructure projects that carried Russian gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea.
Investigators from Sweden and Denmark – in whose exclusive economic zones the explosions occurred – have said the ruptures were a result of sabotage, but have not said who they believe was responsible.
President Vladimir Putin has accused “Anglo-Saxon” powers of blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, a Kremlin-designed project to circumvent Ukraine in exporting its gas directly to Germany and further to Europe.
Russia’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday the United States had questions to answer over its role in explosions on the undersea Nord Stream gas pipelines last year.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge)
