London: Russia has accused Britain of coordinating attacks on the Nord Stream gas pipes, media reported.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said on Monday that Kremlin intelligence agents “have data indicating British military specialists were directing and coordinating the attack” which destroyed two gas lines running from Russia to Germany in September, Daily Mail reported.
It comes after Kim Dotcom, who ran site Megaupload before he was convicted of fraud, began circulating a conspiracy theory that Liz Truss had texted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken immediately after the attack saying “it’s done.”
Kim claimed to have learned of the message from Truss’s iCloud, after it was revealed that Russia hacked her phone while she was foreign secretary. Neither Kim nor Peskov have released the evidence they claim to have seen.
Nonetheless, the accusation does represent a new line of attack from Russia at the US and Britain which have led support for Ukraine in resisting Putin’s invasion.
Western leaders have stopped short of publicly blaming Russia for the attack – which blew two holes in each pipeline and may have permanently disabled them – but have been privately briefing their suspicions that Putin was behind it.
Kim’s claim about Truss’s iPhone also picked up and parroted by Maria Zakharova, spokesman for Russia’s foreign ministry, who demanded answers, Daily Mail reported.
“Frankly, I don’t care who got this information or how,” she said. “I am interested in London’s response to the following question: “Did British Prime Minister Liz Truss send a message to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in the immediate aftermath of the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline saying ‘It’s done?”
(IANS)
