"Speaking on Dec. 29, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Russia would not let the West “sweep the blasts at the Nord Stream pipelines under the rug”, TASS reports.
“It is also clear why interested Western countries continue to ignore calls to hold a transparent, objective, professional and depoliticized investigation designated to establish and punish those guilty. Russia won’t allow such maneuvering dubbed as ‘let’s sweep everything under the rug’ to happen once again. Yes, this truth will be inconvenient for the West because what happened with Nord Stream 1 and 2 is a crime, a terror attack which was being plotted ideologically and politically and at that moment when, apparently, the West had exhausted all opportunities to use economic and political levers of pressure and to implement its set goal of curbing this project, they switched to plan B and physically destroyed this civilian infrastructure,” Zakharova said.
According to Zakharova, the Nord Stream attack was not only “an unprecedented attack on an international transportation infrastructure facility” but also “a highly dangerous precedent which demands a tough response by the entire global community. This is why we will strive for justice and bring to light the hidden motives of this serious crime,” she said.
Speaking alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the White House on February 7, 2022, Joe Biden said that if Russia invaded Ukraine, “there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2”. Pressed to explain how, Biden doubled down: “We will – I promise you – we will be able to do it.”
On Sept. 27, one day after the explosions, Polish MEP Radek Sikorski posted “Thank you, USA” with a photo of the Nord Stream bubble, before later deleting the tweet. Sikorski is married to The Atlantic editor Anne Applebaum, who is also a member of Ukraine hawk think tanks Council on Foreign Relations and the European Council on Foreign Relations.
On January 27, 2022, State Department Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said that ‘If Russia invades Ukraine, Nord Stream 2 will not move forward’"
On Nov. 19, 2019, Anne Applebaum and Victoria Nuland had appeared together at the National Endowment for Democracy to discuss “Democracy in Central Europe After Thirty Years“.
At a press conference on Sept. 30, Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the attack on Nord Stream “a tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy and thus to take away from Vladimir Putin the weaponisation of energy as a means of advancing his imperial designs.”
