Undersea blasts that damaged the Nord Stream I and 2 pipelines this week have led to huge methane leaks. Nordic investigators said the blasts have involved several hundred pounds of explosives.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday accused the West of sabotaging the Russia-built pipelines, a charge vehemently denied by the United States and its allies.
The US-Russia clashes continued later at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in New York called by Russia on the pipelines attacks and as Norwegian researchers published a map projecting that a huge plume of methane from the damaged pipelines will travel over large swaths of the Nordic region.
Speaking Friday in Moscow, Putin claimed that "Anglo-Saxons" in the West have turned from imposing sanctions on Russia to "terror attacks," sabotaging the pipelines in what he described as an attempt to "destroy the European energy infrastructure."
In Washington, US President Joe Biden dismissed Putin's pipeline claims as outlandish.
"It was a deliberate act of sabotage. And now the Russians are pumping out disinformation and lies. We will work with our allies to get to the bottom (of) precisely what happened," Biden promised. "Just don't listen to what Putin's saying. What he's saying we know is not true."
US officials said the Putin claim was trying to shift attention from his annexation on Friday of parts of Ukraine.
"We're not going to let Russia's disinformation distract us or the world from its transparently fraudulent attempt to annex sovereign Ukrainian territory," White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said Friday.
European nations, which have been reeling under soaring energy prices caused by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, have noted that it is Russia, not Europe, that benefits from chaos in the energy markets and spiking prices for energy.
- AP
