US wants to restore Nord Streams, buy them from Europeans for next to nothing — Lavrov

MOSCOW, May 13. /TASS/. The United States plans to restore the Nord Stream pipelines and buy them from Europeans for next to nothing in order to later dictate its own gas prices, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with RT India. "Look at the Americans planning to reinstate the Nord Stream pipelines that were blown up. Under Biden, the Americans claimed that these pipelines would never go into operation again. Now they blame Ukrainians for blowing them up (three out of the four pipelines were damaged), and the Americans want to buy out the share previously owned by European companies," he said. "They want to purchase it at roughly one-tenth of what the Europeans paid for it. If they succeed, they will force the Germans to reclaim their national dignity and say fine, we will use this pipeline again. However, the prices will no longer be based on agreements between Russia and Germany. Prices will instead be dictated by the Americans, who will have bought the pipeline from the Europeans," Lavrov added. On September 26, 2022, an unprecedented terrorist attack was carried out on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines, as a result of which only one string of Nord Stream 2 out of the four pipelines in the system remained intact. The 1,224-km-long Nord Stream pipeline runs along the bottom of the Baltic Sea from Vyborg in Russia to Greifswald in Germany and has a capacity of 55 bcm per year. Construction of the equally powerful Nord Stream 2 was completed on September 10, 2021, but the pipeline was never put into operation. Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office initiated a criminal case over an act of international terrorism. Russian authorities have repeatedly stated that the parties involved in the investigation are doing everything possible to obstruct it. On April 29, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Moscow intends to appeal to the International Court of Justice if Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and Switzerland fail to conduct an honest and transparent investigation into the Nord Stream sabotage.