This week, Swedish engineers found the fourth leak in a huge undersea pipeline that transports Russian natural gas to the EU.
Gas leaks from the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines were reported this week by Sweden and Denmark.
The incidents were the result of “deliberate, negligent, and irresponsible acts of sabotage,” according to NATO.
The notion that Russia had attacked its pipelines was mocked as “expected and foolish.”
The blasts took place in “zones controlled by American intelligence,” according to the Russian foreign ministry.
Miguel Berger, the German ambassador to the UK, claimed that it was clear that a state was to blame because no non-state actor could have been responsible for the incidents.
According to the Swedish coast guard, the fourth rupture on Nord Stream 2 was found relatively close to an earlier, larger leak on Nord Stream 1.
The EU has often accused Russia of using gas supplies as a weapon against it as retaliation for the West’s support for Ukraine.
The International Energy Agency’s chief, Fatih Birol, said it is “very apparent” who is to blame for the damage without going into further detail.
Dmitry Peskov, the spokesman for the Kremlin, said he was “extremely concerned” about the disclosures and added that it was hard to exclude a planned strike.
According to EU officials, the continent’s energy infrastructure would face the “strongest possible response.”
No gas has been transported across the two parallel sections of the network since late August when Russia shut down the Nord Stream 1 pipeline under the pretext that it needed repair.
It extends 1,200 km (745 miles) beneath the Baltic Sea, from the Russian shore at St. Petersburg to northeastern Germany. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline’s construction was put on hold after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.
Seismologists noticed undersea blasts before the leaks. The largest of the bubbles, which are all over the Baltic Sea and have a diameter of one kilometre, may be seen in a video of the leaks provided by Denmark’s Defense Command.
According to Bjorn Lund of Sweden’s National Seismology Center, there was “no doubt” that these were explosions.
