Some Western States Refuse To Work On Russia's Draft Resolution On Nord Stream -Polyanskiy

UNITED NATIONS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 10th March, 2023) A number of Western countries within the United Nations Security Council refuse to work on Russia's draft resolution calling on UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres to establish a commission to investigate the attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines as they deem this investigation unnecessary, Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy said on Thursday.

"A number of countries, namely Western countries, they don't want to participate in this work (on the resolution). So they have to, they are sending experts, but these experts are just saying 'we don't any need in this kind of investigation at this part,'" Polyanskiy said in an interview with Jackson Hinkle on The Dive podcast.

The official added that the recent media reports on attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines were "really likely to be an attempt to divert attention from really what has happened."

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing officials, the CIA had warned its counterparts in Germany and other European services that a group might be preparing an attack on the Nord Stream pipelines months before the incident. The Telegraph, in turn, reported that Western intelligence agencies investigating the blasts were looking into the possible involvement of a prominent Ukrainian businessman in the attack. The New York Times reported earlier this week, citing US officials, that a "pro-Ukrainian group" was behind the Nord Stream bombing.

Meanwhile, the German newspaper Die Zeit reported that the group used a boat rented from a Poland-based firm, apparently owned by two Ukrainians.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Sputnik on Wednesday that media reports about the attacks on Russia's Nord Stream pipelines were a coordinated spread of disinformation and an attempt to divert attention from the real perpetrators.

The Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, built to deliver gas under the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, have been out of action since they were hit by explosions last September. Nord Stream's operator, Nord Stream AG, said the damage was unprecedented, and it was impossible to estimate the time repairs might take.

Russia considers the explosions of the two pipelines an act of international terrorism. There are no official results of the investigation yet, but Pulitzer Prize-winning US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published a report in February 2023 saying that US navy divers during NATO Baltops exercises in the summer of 2022 to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines had planted explosives which Norway activated three months later. The report added that US President Joe Biden had decided to sabotage the Nord Streams after more than nine months of secret discussions with the national security team.