Russia to continue identifying true culprits behind Nord Stream sabotage — diplomat

MOSCOW, October 8. /TASS/. Russia intends to continue its efforts on international platforms to identify and punish those truly responsible for organizing the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing.

"For our part, we will consistently continue our efforts, including on international platforms, to identify and punish not only those who carried out this unprecedented terrorist attack, but also its true masterminds," the diplomat said.

The Foreign Ministry spokeswoman pointed out that European countries that suffered losses from the pipeline explosions had hastily blocked and terminated their national investigations. Only in Germany are law enforcement and judicial authorities continuing to pursue the case, albeit in a highly peculiar manner. According to Zakharova, the Hamburg Higher Regional Court recently refused to allow the Nord Stream operators to participate in the proceedings concerning the pipeline explosions. "Moreover, the court concluded that the damage inflicted on the companies’ interests was not existential, that they could defend their economic interests through civil proceedings, and that they did not require special protection during the criminal hearings scheduled for mid-October," she added.

Zakharova went on to say that a press release issued by the Hamburg court in this connection indicated that the proceedings were limited to determining the degree of culpability of the sole defendant, a certain Sergey K., in complicity in a war crime involving prohibited methods of warfare and an attack on a civilian facility. "Everything else, including a comprehensive examination of the circumstances of the case, falls outside the scope of the hearings," she stated. "It turns out that they are interested only in how this defendant physically committed his crime, while the fact previously established by Germany’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office that he was acting on instructions from Ukrainian government agencies remains outside the purview of the German judiciary."

"We are not surprised by this turn of events. In four years, Germany’s much-vaunted 'impartial' and 'independent' judiciary has shown no interest whatsoever in identifying and bringing to justice the true instigators and masterminds of this terrorist attack. Now the German judicial authorities have also joined efforts to cover up the truth, apparently unwilling to expose the ideological architects of the pipeline explosions, including those based in Ukraine, which the German authorities continue to support with unwavering determination," Zakharova stressed.