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Former US President Donald Trump has ridiculed the notion that Russia may have been behind explosions at Nord Stream pipelines in Europe last year and suggested that his own country may have perpetrated it.
Speaking in an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Tuesday, set to air in full later this week, Trump was asked “Who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline?” to which he responded by first insisting that he didn’t want to get “our country in trouble” before emphasizing that “it wasn’t Russia.”
“I don’t want to get our country in trouble so I won’t answer it. But I can tell you who it wasn’t, was Russia. How about when they blamed Russia. They said ‘Russia blew up their own pipeline.’ You got a kick out of that one, too. It wasn’t Russia,” Trump said.
While the US and other Western governments have so far offered few details about the still continuing probes into the sabotage, a detailed report released in February by American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh said US President Joe Biden had personally ordered the bombing as a way to persuade Germany to ramp up support for Ukraine amid its war with Russia.
The undersea pipeline was struck by multiple blasts under mysterious circumstances last September. Some reports pointed out how delighted American officials were following the development and said the US was the major beneficiary of the sabotage since it could sell its own gas to Europe at more expensive prices.
Washington, meanwhile, rejected Hersh’s report, which relied on anonymous sources, and insisted it had had no role in blowing up the pipelines.
“It’s a completely false story. There’s no truth to it. Not a shred of it,” US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said, referring to Hersh’s report, in remarks carried by Fox News in February.
Ukrainian officials have also denied any involvement in the Nord Stream sabotage, and subsequent reporting by The New York Times claimed that an unnamed “pro-Ukrainian group” was behind the attack.
