EU believes sabotage likely in leaking Russian gas pipelines

Any deliberate disruption to the EUrsquos energy infrastructure would meet a ldquorobust and united responserdquo its top diplomat was quoted saying on Wednesday after several states said two Russian gas pipelines to Europe were attackedAs gas continued to spew into the Baltic Sea it remained far from clear who might be behind the leaks or any foul play if proven on the Nord Stream pipelines that Russia and European partners spent billions of dollars buildingRussia which slashed gas deliveries to Europe after the West imposed sanctions over Moscowrsquos invasion of Ukraine has also said sabotage was a possibility The European Union believes sabotage probably caused the leaks detected on Monday in the Nord Stream pipelines EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell was reported as saying by German broadcaster ntv echoing views aired by Germany Denmark and Sweden on Tuesday The EU has not named a potential perpetrator or suggested a reason behind it ldquoAny deliberate disruption of European energy infrastructure is utterly unacceptable and will be met with a robust and united responserdquo Borrell said according to ntvAsked about claims Russia might somehow be behind the possible attack Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said ldquoThatrsquos quite predictable and also predictably stupidrdquoldquoThis is a big problem for us because firstly both lines of Nord Stream 2 are filled with gas the entire system is ready to pump gas and the gas is very expensive Now the gas is flying off into the airrdquoldquoBefore making any claims we should wait for investigation into these ruptures whether there was an explosion or notrdquo he said Military campaign till Donetsk annexedThe Kremlin on Wednesday said that the ldquospecial military operationrdquo in Ukraine must continue until Russia takes full control of east Ukrainersquos Donetsk region Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the military campaign in Ukraine would continue ldquoat a minimumrdquo until the ldquoliberationrdquo of the ldquoDonetsk Peoplersquos Republicrdquo referring to the regionrsquos Russianbacked administrationProRussian officials in four partially Russiancontrolled regions of Ukraine declared that voters had chosen to join Russia in hastily organised referendums which the West said were illegal According to Russiainstalled election officials 9337 of the ballots cast in the Zaporizhzhia region supported annexation as did 8737 in the Kherson region 9837 in the Luhansk region and 9937 in DonetskUkraine said on Wednesday that Russianstaged votes in the four Ukrainian regions on becoming part of Russia were ldquonull and worthlessrdquo and that Kyiv would press on with efforts to liberate Ukrainian territory occupied by Russian forcesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever