Joe Biden Accuses Vladimir Putin of Lying About ‘Deliberate Act of Sabotage’ of Nord Stream Pipelines

President Joe Biden delivered remarks at the White House on Friday and accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of lying about the damage that incapacitated the Nord Stream gas pipelines.

“It was a deliberate act of sabotage, and now the Russians are pumping out disinformation and lies,” Biden said.

The president finally made a statement in reaction to the pipeline after repeatedly ignoring reporters’ questions about it on Thursday.

Putin said Friday that the United States and its allies in the West sabotaged the pipeline.

“The sanctions were not enough for the Anglo-Saxons: they moved onto sabotage,” Putin said. “It is hard to believe but it is a fact that they organized the blasts on the Nord Stream international gas pipeline.”

But Biden urged Americans not to listen to Putin’s claims.

“When things calm down, we’re going to be sending divers down to find out exactly what happened. … Just don’t listen to what Putin is saying,” Biden said. “What he is saying, we know, is not true.”

The Nord Stream pipeline network provides natural gas from Russia to Germany, and both pipelines are leaking hundreds of millions of cubic meters of natural gas into the sea.

Dramatic photos and videos of churning water from the leaks demonstrate the significance of the impact on the pipelines. Both pipelines have been closed down:

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/09/30/joe-biden-accuses-vladimir-putin-lying-deliberate-act-sabotage-nord-stream-pipelines/

Zelensky sets conditions for talks with Russia - Ukraine will not negotiate with Moscow until Putin is replaced as president, Zelensky and his cabinet said

Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has refused to negotiate a peace settlement as long as Vladimir Putin remains president of Russia, issuing a regime change demand via his official Telegram channel on Friday.

Claiming he had “always offered Russia coexistence on equal, honest, dignified and fair terms,” Zelensky blamed Russia for the failure of negotiations, insisting that it was “obvious this is impossible with this Russian president.”

“We are ready for a dialogue with Russia, but already with another president of Russia,” he wrote. Unlike the majority of his Telegram posts, this one was written only in Ukrainian, without an accompanying English translation.

Zelensky has repeatedly rejected overtures of peace from Moscow, most recently turning down Putin’s offer on Friday to resume negotiations. What made the offer a non-starter for Kiev is that Putin refused to relinquish the regions that voted this week to join Russia.

“Only the path of strengthening Ukraine and expelling the occupiers from our entire territory will restore peace,” Zelensky declared in his address.

Zelensky also confirmed that Ukraine had submitted an accelerated application to join NATO on Friday, something he previously admitted was probably never going to happen. While the Western media described the move as “more symbolic than practical,” the Ukrainian president seemed quite serious, arguing that Sweden and Finland were able to apply on an accelerated basis even without a Membership Action Plan and it was thus only “fair” that Ukraine do the same.

“De facto, we have already completed our path to NATO,” he said in another Telegram post. “De facto, we have already proven interoperability with the Alliance’s standards… We trust each other, we help each other and we protect each other.”

Zelensky has previously acknowledged Ukraine might struggle to secure the consent of all 30 NATO member nations, pushing instead for the so-called Kiev Security Compact, which would oblige NATO's core members to defend Ukraine “in case of aggression” while codifying the provision of bottomless military and financial aid as a stopgap measure.

Admitting Ukraine would draw NATO into immediate confrontation with Russia, under the Article 5 mutual defense provision. While the US is committed to the “open door” policy when it comes to NATO, now is the wrong time to consider Ukraine’s membership application, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Friday. The move would also make peace with Moscow impossible, as Putin has made clear since before the special military operation began in February that Ukraine must remain a neutral country under any circumstances.

https://www.rt.com/russia/563840-zelensky-negotiations-putin-russia/