Theory of Nord Stream explosion with Ukrainian saboteurs raises many questions - Russian presidential aide

MOSCOW. Sept 8 (Interfax) - The reports on the involvement of Ukrainian saboteurs in the Nord Stream explosions raise a lot of questions, these attacks could have been planned and carried out by the special services of the NATO states, Russian presidential aide Nikolai Patrushev said on Sunday.

"They prefer not to recall now that an exercise of the NATO navy had been conducted in this area of the Baltic Sea literally before the Nord Stream explosion. It should also be noted that the arrested Ukrainians themselves said the investigation against them is aimed at putting the blame on Ukraine and covering the real organizers and participants in the terrorist attack, interested in increasing tensions in the Baltic Sea," Patrushev said in a commentary to the newspaper Kommersant.

"Definitely, it was an act of sabotage carried out on a very professional level. The destruction of a part of an underwater pipeline is in itself a rather difficult task, especially if the work needs to be done as unnoticeably as possible without using a vessel with special equipment. In the case of the Nord Stream pipelines, it is obvious that this task was fulfilled by a high-class team of saboteurs with lot of experience of working at considerable depths and in difficult hydrological conditions of the Baltic Sea," Patrushev said.

"Not every army or special service in the world has swimmers who are capable of carrying out such action in a skilled and, most importantly, hidden way. One of the special services capable of fulfilling this task is the famous British Special Boat Service," he said.

It is one of the oldest maritime sabotage units, known back since the times of WWII, Patrushev said.

States that were interested in looking for real information on what happened in September 2022 were not allowed to participate in the investigation into the acts of sabotage on the Nord Stream, pipelines, he said.

"The Nord Stream sabotage acts only became a prologue to a new spiral of tension on the Baltic track, which is unprecedented in contemporary history. The series of strange accidents with underwater cables and incidents with Russian vessels shows that the West has seriously decided to up the ante by making the Baltic Sea a scene of an undeclared hybrid war," Patrushev said.

Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 are parts of a trunk pipeline between Russian and Germany, running on the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

An explosion in September 2022 led to depressurization of two threads of Nord Stream and one thread of Nord Stream 2 near the Danish Bornholm Island. A criminal case was opened in Russia based on the article dealing with international terrorism.

The German newspaper Die Zeit reported in late August that investigators in Germany had identified all of the suspected participants in the operation to blow up the gas pipelines. According to the paper's information, seven Ukrainians were involved in the Nord Stream explosions: four divers, an explosives expert, a skipper, and the operation's coordinator.