Russia Exclusion To Dent Credibility Of EU Probe Into Nord Stream Attacks - Expert

An EU investigation into the crippling attacks on the Russian underwater gas link to Germany will be invalid without Russia, Samuele Furfari, a professor of geopolitics of energy at Brussels university ULB, told Sputnik

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 05th October, 2022) An EU investigation into the crippling attacks on the Russian underwater gas link to Germany will be invalid without Russia, Samuele Furfari, a professor of geopolitics of energy at Brussels university ULB, told Sputnik.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday Russia was concerned by the recent news conferences in Sweden and Denmark, in whose waters gas leaks occurred, because they suggested that it might be barred from the probe into what Russia sees as terror attacks on its infrastructure.

"Russia must be involved in the investigation, as its main energy company, Gazprom, is co-owner of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 installations. Without Russia, the conclusions would not have any validity," Samuele Furfari insisted.

Russia and the European Union have traded blame for the gas leaks, which were reported last week in three of the four Nord Stream gas pipelines. Peskov rejected the accusations as "absurd," while President Vladimir Putin hinted at the United States and the United Kingdom as the possible culprits.

Furfari suggested that a powerful ally of Germany's, the prime beneficiary of cheap Russian gas supplies, might have sabotaged the pipelines to prevent Moscow from tempting Berlin into reopening the taps during the cold winter months.

He argued that the fledgling government of UK Prime Minister Liz Truss was unlikely to have played a role.

But the expert cautioned against pointing the finger of blame without getting proof first. An international inquiry into the attacks, he said, must include Russia and Germany as the Primary investigators as well as Sweden, Denmark and possibly Poland and the United States, even though Washington has no objective reason to participate.

The attacks on Russian pipelines have exacerbated the global energy crisis. The European Union was already struggling to replace shortfalls from Russian natural gas when the pumping stopped.

"Europe is still faced with the stressing problem of replacing 170 billion cubic meters of gas that Russia was delivering through Nord Stream 1. And the EU still does not know how it could be replaced immediately. It would take years to build the ships to transport LNG and the LNG terminals to replace Russian gas," Furfari concluded.