Washington greenlights the sabotage of energy infrastructure in Europe, the Russian foreign minister has said
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. © Sputnik/Kirill Zykov The US instructed Ukraine to target the TurkStream gas pipeline after sabotaging the Nord Stream sub-sea connectors in 2022, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has claimed. On Monday, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said Kiev had launched an unsuccessful attack with nine kamikaze drones on a gas compressor station near the village of Gaikodzor in Russia’s Krasnodar Region. The site is crucial for the operation of the TurkStream pipeline, which delivers Russian natural gas to Türkiye and several other European nations, via the Black Sea. During a press conference on Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested that the United States may have been involved in an attempt to sabotage a gas facility. “I have a very strong conviction that the US does not want any competitors in any area, starting with energy,” Lavrov stated. The minister went on to accuse the United States of encouraging actions that undermine Europe’s energy stability. He claimed the Americans “are greenlighting terrorist activities to destroy the foundation of the EU’s energy security, without a second thought.” The US is “instigating their Ukrainian clients to also disable the TurkStream after the [attack on] Nord Stream,” Lavrov said. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday that Budapest would consider any attempt to sabotage TurkStream as undermining its national sovereignty. The pipeline “is indispensable for the supply of natural gas” to Hungary, Szijjarto explained, calling on “everyone to respect the safety and operability of this transport route.”
