Russia summons Danish, German, Swedish envoys to protest Nord Stream gas pipeline probe

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - The Russian Foreign Ministry on Thursday summoned the ambassadors of Denmark, Germany, and Sweden to convey a protest of an investigation of last month’s leaks from the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

On its website, the ministry said the absence of an official response to the request of Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin about including Russian specialists in the investigation "provokes perplexity."

"In case of refusal of admission of Russian experts to the ongoing investigative actions, Moscow will proceed from the fact that these countries have something to hide, or they cover up the perpetrators of these terrorist acts,” it said.

"Russia, of course, will not recognize any ‘pseudo-results’ of such an investigation if Russian specialists do not participate in it," it added.

On Sept. 26, there were leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipelines caused – as preliminary results of a Sweden-Denmark investigation showed – by a series of explosions believed to have been caused by intentional sabotage.

The Nord Stream pipelines have two lines each, built to transport natural gas from Russia to Germany through the Baltic Sea by the Russian state-owned gas company, Gazprom, which owns most of the infrastructure.

The leaks coincided with the opening of the Baltic Pipeline, delivering natural gas from the North Sea through Denmark to Poland.