MOSCOW: Russia said on Thursday that leaks of gas from pipelines to Germany appeared to be the result of state-sponsored terrorism, as an EU official said the incident had fundamentally changed the nature of the conflict in Ukraine.
The European Union is investigating the cause of the leaks in the Gazprom-led Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines and has said it suspects sabotage was behind the damage off the coasts of Denmark and Sweden.
Four days after the leaks were first detected, it is not clear who is behind any attack on the pipelines that Russia and European partners spent billions of dollars building.
It is very hard to imagine that such an act of terrorism could have happened without the involvement of a state of some kind, according to a Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, who said the United States stood to benefit in a war of words with the West over who was responsible. Moscow has previously said that the leaks occurred in territory that is fully under the control of the US intelligence agencies.
Russia's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news conference that Washington would be able to boost its natural gas LNG sales if the pipelines were put out of use.
Peskov, asked to comment on CNN's report, said there had been a much larger NATO presence in the area.
In February, Zakharova called for an EU investigation to be objective and said Washington would have to explain itself if Russia sent troops into Ukraine, but there would be no more sanctions on the new pipeline, which was completed before Moscow sent its troops into Ukraine, but never put into service.
The pipeline operator told Reuters that leaks from the Nord Stream 1 pipeline are likely to be stopped on Monday.
A spokesman for Nord Stream AG said it wasn't possible to give any forecasts for the pipeline's future operation until the damage had been assessed.
Russia had stopped deliveries via Nord Stream 1, saying Western sanctions had hampered operations.
Both of the pipelines had gas in them when the leaks were first detected, and neither pipe was supplying gas to Europe.