Putin accuses the West of sabotaging Baltic Sea pipelines

By JAN M. OLSEN
Associated Press

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of sabotaging the Russia-built gas pipelines under the Baltic Sea to Germany. Putin claimed that the West had turned from sanctions to “terror attacks,” sabotaging the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in what he described as an attempt to “destroy the European energy infrastructure.” The comments came ahead of an emergency meeting Friday at the U.N. Security Council in New York requested by Russia. Denmark and Sweden said the blasts that preceded the huge methane leaks “probably corresponded to an explosive load of several hundred kilos (pounds).” Norwegian researchers, meanwhile, published a map projecting that a huge plume of methane released by the damaged pipelines will travel over large swaths of the Nordic region.