Downing of flying objects a diversion from Nord Stream probe: Snowden

The former United States National Security Agency employee and whistleblower Edward Snowden has said the US is wasting time and money to shoot down unidentified flying objects above US and Canadian soil as a diversion for the Nord Stream probe.

The White House spent "the month of February scrambling jets to fire $400,000 missiles at the local hobby club's $12 balloon", he said on Friday, following reports that the objects are likely to be just civilian balloons from local hobbyists.

Their shooting down was a political stunt to divert the public's attention from the investigation into the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines, said Snowden, who had exposed the NSA's extensive surveillance program over US citizens and foreign leaders in 2013.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command said last week that it had discovered three unidentified flying objects, two of which were shot down by the US military in US airspace, while the third was discovered over Canadian soil.

"It's just the old engineered panic" to ensure that national security reporters get assigned to investigate balloon nonsense "rather than (US) budgets or bombings (of Nord Stream)", Snowden said.

This month the US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh alleged that US Navy divers planted the remotely triggered explosives last June in collaboration with Norway, destroying three of the four Nord Stream pipelines three months later. The White House has denied the claims.

In the face of this allegation, Russia wants the United Nations Security Council to ask for an independent inquiry into the attacks.

Russia gave the 15-member council a draft resolution on Friday, seen by Reuters, that would ask the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to establish an international investigation into the "sabotage "and identify who was to blame.

Xinhua - Agencies