The Ukrainian government had nothing to do with the explosions on Russia's Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea last autumn, Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov told France Presse, The Guardian reports.
“This is not our activity,” he said in Stockholm, where a meeting of European Union defence ministers is taking place today.
The American newspaper New York Times wrote about the involvement of a "pro-Ukrainian group" in the explosions on the lines of Nord Stream and the idle Nord Stream 2. The journalists noted that the relevant information was given to them by officials who had access to classified intelligence. At the same time, there is no information that these sabotage attacks were authorised by the Ukrainian authorities.
According to published reports, the explosions could have been carried out by citizens of Ukraine or Russia, or both.
Advisor to the head of the Presidential Office Mykhaylo Podolyak denied Ukraine's involvement in the sabotage, and the White House was urged not to rush to conclusions.
The explosions on the two pipelines occurred almost simultaneously and are being investigated by Sweden and Denmark. The preliminary investigation concluded that they were caused by sabotage. Since the beginning of the full-scale war against Ukraine, Moscow has reduced gas supplies to Europe through Nord Stream 1 as a means of energy blackmail. Europe refused to launch Nord Stream 2 as a sanction for the invasion. In August, Russia decided to completely cut off gas supplies through Stream 1, claiming that it had "technical problems". European politicians consider this excuse to be nonsense.