Andrej Cukic / EPA
Aleksandar Vučić, president of Serbia
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said detonators and explosives “of devastating power” were found near the Balkan Stream gas pipeline, which crosses Serbia and supplies Russian gas to Hungary.
The leaders of Serbia and Hungary announced on Sunday that they were explosives found near a gas pipeline in Serbia transporting Russian gas to Hungary.
“Our units found a explosive of devastating power“, said Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in a post on Instagram, where he stated that “two large packages of explosives with detonators” were found in Kanjiza, in northern Serbia, “a few hundred meters” from the Balkan Stream gas pipeline.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán called a meeting of the Defense Council from your country to discuss the situation.
“According to the information we have, an act of sabotage was prepared,” Orbán said after the meeting.
The two leaders did not immediately provide further details about the discoveries nor did they release photos.
Ukraine rejects any connection
The Balkan Stream is a gas pipeline that crosses Bulgaria and Serbiaconnecting Hungary to Russian gas piped under the Black Sea to Turkey.
Orbán stated that “the Ukraine has been trying for years to cut off energy supplies Russia to Europe”, but did not go so far as to directly blame Ukraine or any other actor.
Ukraine denied any connection to the alleged sabotage.
“We categorically reject attempts to falsely associate Ukraine to the incident with explosives found near the Turkstream gas pipeline in Serbia,” said Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhii Tykhyi.
“A Ukraine has nothing to do with this. Most likely, this is a Russian false flag operation, as part of Moscow’s strong interference in the Hungarian elections.”
Đuro Jovanićdirector of the Military Security Agency (VBA), Belgrade’s counterintelligence body, also stated on Sunday night that it was “not true that Ukrainians” were behind the sabotage. “The manufacturer of the explosives is not necessarily the one who ordered or carried out the detonation,” he said, adding that “the marks on the explosives show that they were made in the USA”.
Serbia and Hungary depend on imports of Russian gas.
In recent weeks, Orbán has accused Ukraine of intentionally delaying repairs to another pipeline damaged that runs through the country, which has interrupted the flow of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia.
Hungarian opposition questions the chosen moment
The announcement also comes a week before fiercely contested elections in Hungary, which could result in nationalist Orbán losing power after 16 years in power.
The main opposition candidate, Peter Magyar, reacted to the news accusing Orbán of trying to sow panic before the vote.
“Several people publicly indicated that something would happen ‘accidentally’ into the gas pipeline in Serbia at Easter, a week before the Hungarian elections,” Magyar said in a video posted on Facebook. “And that’s exactly what happened.”
