Russia responds to Danish Nord Stream probe refusal

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has suggested that Copenhagen is doing Washington’s bidding

Denmark has never been interested in finding the real culprits behind the explosions that destroyed Russia’s Nord Stream pipelines last September, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has claimed. She noted that Copenhagen had dragged its feet on granting permission for the second leg of the gas conduit and is refusing to cooperate with Moscow now that it has been sabotaged.

In a statement released on Saturday, Zakharova suggested that Copenhagen’s long-standing aversion to the Nord Stream project is due to American influence.

“Copenhagen, which so ferociously defends US interests in Europe, was in the first place not interested in conducting an investigation that could shed light on” those behind the sabotage, the Russian official wrote.

She pointed out that Denmark has yet to respond in a meaningful way to any of the numerous requests Russian authorities have made about the investigation into the blasts, including one by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin last year. Zakharova also reminded Danish officials that Moscow is the owner of the destroyed gas pipelines.

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According to the statement, “despite Denmark’s refusal [to participate] in a joint investigation into the sabotage,” Russia will continue to insist on being “given answers to the questions posed earlier.” Zakharova went on to warn that Moscow would not let Copenhagen “sweep the issue under the rug,” adding that only an open international probe that includes Russia would be able to establish the facts and present them in an objective manner.

Appearing on Russia’s Russia 1 TV channel on Thursday, Zakharova described Denmark’s refusal as a “fraud” and a “total scam.”

Earlier that day, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen ruled out the possibility of Moscow participating in the probe, explaining to journalists that “Denmark, Sweden and Germany all have rule of law and one can have confidence in our investigations.”

Russia has accused the three countries of obstruction and asked the UN to initiate an impartial international investigation.

The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were built under the Baltic Sea to deliver Russian natural gas to Germany and onward to Western Europe. Both conduits were ruptured and made inoperable by explosions near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022.