U.N. Security Council to Hold Emergency Meeting on Nord Stream Sabotage

The United Nations Security Council will convene an emergency meeting on August 26 to address the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines, following a request from Russia, according to Dmitry Polyansky, Russia’s deputy permanent representative to the U.N.

The session, scheduled for 4 p.m. local time in New York, comes after the arrest of a suspect tied to the September 2022 attack. Polyansky said Russia intends to highlight the delays in the German investigation and its lack of transparency during the meeting. The Panamanian presidency of the Security Council confirmed the session.

On August 21, Italian police detained 49-year-old Ukrainian national Sergey Kusnetsov under a European arrest warrant issued by Germany. German prosecutors accuse him of coordinating a group that planted explosives on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines near Denmark’s Bornholm island.

Kusnetsov, who could face up to 15 years in prison in Germany, rejected voluntary extradition and claimed he was in Ukraine at the time of the attack. On September 26, 2022, three sections of the pipelines sustained severe damage.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has alleged that the sabotage was carried out with U.S. support. Russia’s Prosecutor General has opened a case into international terrorism.