U.N. Security Council meets on Nord Stream at Russia's request

Media coverage | 30/09/2022

Remarks by Marc-Antoine Eyl-Mazzega, director of Ifri's Center for Energy & Climate, on the occasion of the meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Nord Stream at Russia's request, on September 30, 2022.

"The four pipelines of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 corridors were designed and laid on the bottom of the sea with a view to reducing the risks of any significant damage eventuating from storms, non-exploded Second world war bomb, vessel anchors and fishing trawl, or sinking ships. These are state of the art pipelines. To my best knowledge, an accident can be ruled out."

"I am however not in a position to tell you what and who caused the explosions. Instead, in my remarks, I will try to contextualize this unprecedented event.
In a nutshell, the explosions are another episode in a long-standing geopolitical confrontation between the US and Russia on the one hand and Europe and Russia on the other hand where energy trade and pipelines have taken a center stage and been weaponized."

"These explosions set an extraordinary precedent where energy infrastructure is targeted by obvious sabotage operations of sophisticated nature. We had seen this before in Ukraine. This should not be a concern for Europeans only, but for the rest of the world too as anything happening in Europe has global implications.".

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