The Russian government has accused Britain of being responsible for the explosions at the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines.

“According to the available information, representatives of a unit of the British Navy were involved in the planning, preparation and implementation of a terrorist attack in the Baltic Sea on September 26 this year,” the Defense Ministry in Moscow said. The ministry did not provide any evidence for these allegations.

The four explosions in the Baltic Sea off the Danish island of Bornholm had torn several leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines. The leaks discovered on September 26 were preceded by explosions, and the first underwater investigations confirmed the suspicion of acts of sabotage. The Nord Stream pipelines were out of service but filled with gas at the time of their damage.

So far, it has not been proven who is behind the explosions. The Swedish public prosecutor’s office had just announced new investigations into the crime scenes surrounding the gas leaks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines. Russia has repeatedly complained that it was not included in the international investigation into the leaks allegedly caused by acts of sabotage.

The government in London sharply rejected the allegations now being made by Russia against the British Navy. “To distract from their disastrous handling of the illegal invasion of Ukraine, the Russian MoD resorts to spreading false claims of epic proportions,” the British MoD said on Twitter. “This made-up story says more about disputes within the Russian government than about the West.”

The Russian government has also accused Britain of involvement in Saturday morning’s drone strikes in Crimea. “This morning at 4:20 a.m., the Kyiv regime carried out a terrorist attack on the ships of the Black Sea Fleet,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. Most of the 16 drones were intercepted via Sevastopol. The minesweeper “Iwan Golubez” and installations in a bay were slightly damaged.

The “act of terrorism” was carried out by British “specialists” stationed in Ochakiv in the Ukrainian region of Mykolayiv, it said. These British units are also responsible for training Ukrainian special forces for naval operations. The Defense Ministry also said that the ships now being targeted in Sevastopol were being used to protect the convoys exporting Ukrainian grain. Sevastopol is the home port of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

Image by Wikimedia (The Russian Presidential Press and Information Office) Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)