Russian embassy says US wants to play down involvement in Nord Stream blasts

FILE PHOTO: The logo of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project is seen on a pipe at the Chelyabinsk pipe rolling plant in Chelyabinsk, Russia, February 26, 2020. REUTERS/Maxim Shemetov

(Reuters) - The Russian embassy in the U.S. said on Wednesday Washington is seeking to play down damaging information about the alleged involvement of its intelligence services in last year's blasts that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

Moscow failed on Monday to get the U.N. Security Council to ask for an independent inquiry into explosions in September that ruptured the Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia and Germany and spewed gas into the Baltic Sea.

Russian officials reacted angrily and the Kremlin said on Tuesday it would keep demanding an international investigation.

The Russian embassy in the U.S. said in a statement posted on its Telegram messaging platform that Washington is doing "everything possible" to prevent "impartial efforts" establish circumstances around the explosions.

"We see this as an obvious attempt ... to play down information from reputable journalists that is damaging for the United States about the likely direct involvement of American intelligence services," the embassy said in the statement posted in Russian.

In a February blog post, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh cited an unidentified source as saying that U.S. navy divers had destroyed the pipelines with explosives on the orders of President Joe Biden.

The White House dismissed Hersh's report as "utterly false and complete fiction". Norway said the allegations were "nonsense".

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Sonali Paul)