Russia will not allow Western countries to blow up any more gas pipelines, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.
Moscow will rely on dependable partners such as China and India in its energy policy, he added, speaking at the Raisina Dialogue forum in New Delhi.
“The war that we are trying to put an end to, and that was initiated against us using the Ukrainian people, of course, it has impacted Russian politics, including its energy policy. In short, what has changed is that we will no longer rely on any partners in the West,” Lavrov said.
When asked how the conflict in Ukraine had influenced Russia’s energy policy, the Russian Foreign Minister said:
“Russia’s energy policy will henceforth be oriented towards reliable partners, those who can be trusted. India and China, of course, are among them.”
Earlier, the Foreign Minister had expressed Russia’s “shock” over the lack of punishment for those who instigated the Nord Stream attack, reiterated Moscow’s insistence on a “fair and swift investigation,” and vowed that Russia would not allow an investigation into the terror attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines to be swept under the rug.
“You remember how the West reacted to the investigation into Nord Stream published by Seymour Hersh – their nervous reaction. They started saying it’s nonsense and that they were not even going to discuss it. I think this makes everything clear. But we will do our best to make this investigation happen,” Russia’s top diplomat told Sputnik at a press conference following the meeting of the G20 foreign ministers in New Delhi, India on March 2.
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines were built by Russian and European energy companies to deliver up to 110 billion cubic meters of gas annually from Russia to Europe along the bottom of the Baltic Sea. However, sections of the infrustructure were struck in a coordinated terror attack on September 26, 2022.
A month after the blasts, Russian officials accused the “Anglo-Saxons” of responsibility, with the Russian military suspecting Britain’s Royal Navy. In February, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote about the operation in great detail in a bombshell Substack article, pointing the finger of blame at the US and Norwegian militaries for the clandestine operation. Western officials were quick to dismiss Hersh’s reporting, while much of the mainstream western media following suit.