FILE PHOTO: Gas bubbles from the Nord Stream 2 leak reaching surface of the Baltic Sea in the area shows disturbance of well over one kilometre diameter near Bornholm, Denmark, September 27, 2022. Danish Defence Command/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
KYIV (Reuters) - Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak denied his country's involvement in explosions which damaged the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline and instead pointed the finger at Russia in comments to Reuters on Thursday.
"Such an act can only be carried out with extensive technical and financial resources ... and who possessed all this at the time of the bombing? Only Russia," Podolyak said as part of his written comments.
The multi-billion dollar Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines transporting gas under the Baltic Sea were ruptured by a series of explosions in September 2022, seven months after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Polish prosecutors said on Wednesday that Poland had received a European arrest warrant issued by Berlin in connection with the attack, but the suspect, a Ukrainian man named as Volodymyr Z, has already left Poland.
On Friday, the Wall Street Journal reported that top Ukrainian officials were involved in what happened.
"Ukraine has nothing to do with the Nord Stream explosions," Podolyak said, adding that Ukraine did not gain any strategic or tactical advantage from the blasts.
Russia has already blamed the United States, Britain and Ukraine for the blasts, which largely cut Russian gas off from the lucrative European market. Those countries have denied involvement.
Germany, Denmark, and Sweden all opened investigations into the incident, and the Swedes found traces of explosives on several objects recovered from the explosion site, confirming the blasts were deliberate acts.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; Writing by Anastasiia Malenko and Pavel Polityuk; Editing by Jason Neely and Shounak Dasgupta)
