UN Security Council Rejects Russia’s Resolution on Nord Stream Pipelines

The Russian Federation, China and Brazil voted in favor of the resolution, while other members of the UN Security Council abstained. They want to wait for the results of national investigations by Sweden, Denmark and Germany. The UN Security Council did not support Russia’s resolution to conduct an international investigation under the auspices of the organization into the explosions at the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines.  In a vote on Monday, March 27, only Russia, China and Brazil supported the document, while the remaining 12 Security Council members abstained. For a resolution to be adopted, it needed a minimum of nine “yes” votes and no vetoes by Russia, China, France, the United States or the United Kingdom. The U.S. Accused Russia of an Attempt to Discredit the Ongoing Investigations The majority of the states that abstained from voting on a Russian resolution to set up a U.N. commission to investigate the Nord Stream explosions explained this as a desire to see the results of ongoing domestic investigations, Reuters reports. In particular, Deputy U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Robert Wood said there was no need for a U.N. investigation into Nord Stream because the Swedish, Danish and German investigations were “comprehensive, transparent and impartial.” He called the Russian Federation resolution “an attempt to discredit the work of ongoing national investigations and prejudice any conclusions they reached that do not comport to Russia’s predetermined and political narrative.” “It was not an attempt to seek the truth,” Wood stressed. In recent months, Russia has repeatedly rebuked countries conducting national investigations into the North Streams explosions for failing to inform Moscow of their progress. The Blasts on Nord Stream Pipelines Blasts that damaged three of the four strands of the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines running along the bottom of the Baltic Sea from Russia to Germany, broke out in late September 2022. None of the damaged pipes was transporting gas at the time. “Nord Stream was stopped by Russia shortly before the explosions, and Nord Stream 2 was never commissioned amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. One of the strands of Nord Stream 2 survived, and after the incident, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to pump gas through it, but Germany refused. Sweden and Denmark, through whose exclusive economic zones the pipelines passed, as well as Germany are investigating the explosions. In a joint letter to the UN Security Council, Berlin, Stockholm and Copenhagen said the pipelines were damaged by “powerful explosions caused by sabotage.” For their part, the U.S. and NATO also called what happened an “act of sabotage.”