Berlin was “humiliated” by Washington during the Nord Stream sabotage controversy, senior security official Nikolay Patrushev has said
FILE PHOTO: A gas leak from the Nord Stream pipeline near Sweden © Swedish Coast Guard via Getty Images
Germany is facing an inevitable economic decline after losing its access to Russian energy, but cannot do anything about it because it is not a sovereign nation, the secretary of the Russian National Security Council has claimed.
“Germany tried for many years to build its economy on a combination of cheap Russian energy and advanced German technologies. Like no one else, it realizes that the terrorist attack against the [Nord Stream pipelines] will definitely cause the German economy to decline further,” Nikolay Patrushev said in an interview published in Argumenti i Fakti newspaper on Monday.
The advantages that German businesses enjoyed by getting access to Russian fuel has long irritated the governments of the US and the UK, he continued. But Berlin is not at liberty to continue cooperating with Moscow, “because the German nation is not independent.”
“Washington imposes on Berlin its economic and environmental agenda and keeps a 35,000-strong military force on its soil. For years, the White House controlled [former chancellor] Angela Merkel, and now it forces the German leadership to side with the version of the pipeline sabotage that is advantageous to the US authorities,” Patrushev said, describing America’s treatment of Germany as “humiliating.”
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The remarks were part of Patrushev’s comments on the sabotage of the undersea pipelines, which were built to supply Germany with Russian natural gas. The Nord Stream links were ruptured by powerful explosions last September in what Russia has called a blatant terrorist attack.
A series of articles published by Western media this month claimed that Western intelligence services believe that a “pro-Ukrainian group” not associated with any government was behind the attack. Patrushev argued that, considering the training and equipment that such a complicated operation required, this scenario would seem plausible only to people who “cannot think logically.”
Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh had previously reported that the operation was ordered by US President Joe Biden and conducted by a US-Norwegian team of saboteurs. Both nations deny this allegation.
Hersh said Washington wanted to prevent Berlin from making a U-turn on its decision to phase out Russian gas supplies in response to the Ukrainian crisis. Liquified natural gas, which is produced by American companies and costs significantly more, took over a large portion of the European energy market previously held by Russian fuel.
