Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday dismissed as "rubbish" the idea that Russia had damaged a gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia and suggested such claims were made up to divert attention from what he said was a Western attack on Nord Stream.
Helsinki said last Tuesday that a subsea gas pipeline and a telecommunications cable connecting Finland and Estonia under the Baltic Sea had been damaged in what may have been a deliberate act.
Asked by reporters in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, about claims that Russia could have been involved, Putin said: "That is complete rubbish."
Until recently, Putin said, he had not even known such a pipeline existed as it was so small. He also suggested that it might have somehow been snagged by an anchor, some sort of hook or an earthquake, and suggested that Finland investigate.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said the alliance is sharing its information over the damage and stands ready to support the allies concerned. Finland joined NATO in April, while Estonia has been a member since 2004.
Putin said it was clear that suggestions that Russia was involved were "done only to distract attention from the terrorist attack carried out by the West against Nord Stream".
Russia says blasts on the Nord Stream gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea in September 2022 were carried out by the United States and Britain, without providing evidence.
Washington and London have denied any involvement in what they - along with Sweden, Denmark and Germany - have called an act of sabotage.
U.S. newspapers including The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have reported that the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency knew of a Ukrainian plot to attack the pipelines. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has denied Ukraine attacked them.
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 Vladimir Soldatkin; writing by Maxim Rodionov; editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Gareth Jones)