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By Isabel van Brugen
News Reporter
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Former President Donald Trump has hinted the U.S. was involved in the explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
Trump made the remarks on Tuesday's edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News, his first sit-down interview since being charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He denies all the charges and has pleaded not guilty.
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Last September damage was found on the two Nord Stream natural gas pipelines that link Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea. A Swedish investigation found evidence of detonations, pointing to sabotage.
President Joe Biden called the leaks a "deliberate act of sabotage" at the time, but he did not directly accuse Moscow of being responsible.
Since then, there has been speculation that the U.S. ordered the sabotage, while news outlets including The New York Times and The Washington Post have suggested a pro-Ukraine group may have been responsible, citing unnamed officials.
Moscow, Kyiv and Washington have all denied involvement.
During the Fox News interview, Carlson asked: "Who blew up the Nord Stream pipeline?"
Trump replied: "I don't want to get our country in trouble, so I won't answer it. But I can tell you who it wasn't was Russia."
He added: "But when they blamed Russia, you know, they said Russia blew up their own pipeline. You got a kick out of that one, too. It wasn't Russia."
Newsweek has contacted the U.S. State Department for comment.
In February Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused Washington of orchestrating the blasts, suggesting that comments made by Victoria Nuland, under secretary of state for political affairs, during a Senate hearing on January 26 pointed to U.S. involvement.
President Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin have described the pipeline blasts as a terror attack.
A State Department spokesman told Newsweek in February that Lavrov's allegations were "preposterous" and "just another desperate attempt to deflect from Russia's brutal war against Ukraine with blatant disinformation and lies."
The spokesman added: "We can say categorically that the United States was not involved in any way and we continue to work with allies and partners to get to the bottom of what happened."
Sergei Ryabkov, Russia's deputy foreign minister, also blamed the Biden administration for the explosions, vowing that there would be "consequences."
Speaking to the state-run news agency RIA Novosti in February, Ryabkov referred to a report posted by American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh on Substack. The report, which has been called "utterly false and complete fiction" by the White House, alleged that the pipeline attack was carried out at the direction of Biden.
European investigations into the Nord Stream explosions are continuing.
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