Aerial photo released by the Danish Ministry of Defense on Sept. 27, 2022 shows the Nord Stream gas pipeline leak site. Measuring stations in Sweden registered strong underwater explosions in the same area of sea as the gas leaks that occurred in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines on Monday, Swedish television (SVT) reported on Tuesday. The government of Denmark considers the Nord Stream gas pipeline leaks "deliberate actions," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said on Tuesday.(Photo: Xinhua)

The lack of political trust between the US-led West and Russia for a long time, as well as the contradictions and divergences apparent across the "collective West," has delayed the launch of an objective, impartial and professional investigation and led to the current impasse of the situation, said Russian studies experts.

The US is vehemently denying accusations that it has violated the ethics of war, particularly by targeting the Nord Stream pipeline, a piece of critical cross-border infrastructure, because it will only drive it further away from its European allies, experts noted.

An object found 30 kilometers from the site of the Nord Stream explosion, which is not part of the gas pipeline structure and may be a fragment of a bomb, underlines the urgent need to create a UN commission on this incident, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Monday.

"This discovery once again underlines the urgent need for the UN Security Council to urgently adopt a resolution on the establishment of a relevant commission to prevent such incidents from happening again," she said, adding that countries across the "collective West" keep away from constructive work on the draft resolution, given their refusal to allow Russia to participated in the investigation, will be evidence of deliberately created obstacles to establishing the truth.

On September 26, 2022, two Russian underwater pipelines carrying natural gas to Europe, the Nord Stream I and II, exploded on the same day under the Baltic Sea, causing large amounts of gas to leak into the nearby sea.

After the explosion, the US, the EU, NATO and Russia all said the blast was caused by sabotage. Speaking in a conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated that the Nord Stream gas pipeline had suffered an unprecedented international terrorist attack.

A report by Pulitzer-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh was released on February 8, accusing the US of being the culprit behind the blasts by tasking US navy divers with planting remotely-operated explosives on the pipeline under the cover of NATO's Baltops 2022 exercises, once again igniting international public debate.

John Dougan, another US journalist who provided evidence of American involvement in the sabotage of the Nord Streams in the Baltic Sea, told Russian media outlet Sputnik that he received an anonymous letter from a participant in Baltops 2022 exercises, during which explosives were allegedly planted on Russian gas pipelines.

"This was not an easy operation to carry out. It's the kind of operation that the CIA and other covert parts of the US government do carry out rather routinely, and the US was basically the only country with the motive, the means," said Jeffery Sachs, a world-renowned economist, professor of Public Policy at Columbia University and former Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General.

Although evidence seems to point to the US plotting and launching the bombing attack, an objective investigation led by the UN as expected by Russia has been delayed due to the refusal of the US-led West to cooperate, making it also difficult for the evidence found by Russia's unilateral investigation to have an effect in the short term, Zhang Hong, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

However, Russia should not expect too much from a joint UN investigation, as the organization has become a de facto tool of Western politics, Cui Heng, an assistant research fellow from the Center for Russian Studies of East China Normal University, told the Global Times on Tuesday.

US officials have seen new intelligence that indicates a "pro-Ukrainian group" was responsible for the sabotage last year of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

The attack benefitted Ukraine by severely damaging Russia's means of reaping millions by selling natural gas to Western Europe, while at the same time, it added to the pressure of high energy prices on key Ukrainian allies in Western Europe, particularly Germany, according to the report.

Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said that the US is trying to force German leaders to accept a favorable version of the Nord Stream gas pipeline explosion, in response to new claims by some Western media that the "pro-Ukraine group" was behind the explosion, reported Russian media on Monday.

It is the European people who have suffered from the serious sabotage inflicted on the pipeline, which is an important civilian facility, because it has a serious impact on the local economy and energy security, Cui said.

Once it is uncovered that the US is the culprit of the destruction of the pipeline, it will not only mean that it violates war ethics, but also further widen the rift between the US and Europe, and trigger public opinions in Europe to demand separation from the US and Ukraine, the expert explained.

The international community, including China, has been pressing for an objective, impartial and professional investigation into the Nord Stream pipeline explosion, which is often referred to as Europe's energy lifeline.

The collective silence of the US government has been puzzling, the media and its European partners on this matter, all of which are extraordinary actions that reinforce the belief that the bombing was an extremely complex operation, the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said earlier, noting that an objective, fair and professional investigation into the explosions needs to be carried out at an early date so as to provide an answer to the international community.