Sawt Falasteen - Russia says Ukraine targeted gas pipeline to Turkey

The allegation -- which Kyiv has not commented on -- comes amid an escalating energy row between the two countries, almost three years after Russia launched its full-scale military offensive.

Kyiv halted the transit of Russian gas via Ukraine on January 1 -- ending decades of energy cooperation that had brought billions of dollars to both countries -- in a bid to cut off revenue for Moscow's army.

The United States last week rolled out fresh sanctions on Russia's oil sector.

The Russian defence ministry said Ukraine had fired nine attack drones on Saturday at a gas compressor station in the village of Gai-Kodzor, near Russia's southern coast on the Black Sea.

The site is across from the annexed Crimean peninsula -- heavily targeted by Kyiv throughout the three-year conflict.

It said the facility was part of the TurkStream pipeline and accused Ukraine of trying to "cut off gas supplies to European countries".

"All the drones were shot down," the defence ministry said in a statement published Monday on its Telegram channel.

"As a result of falling fragments of one drone, a building and equipment of a gas measuring station suffered minor damage," it added, saying there was no disruption to supply and the facility was working as normal.

TurkStream runs for 930 kilometres (580 miles) under the Black Sea from the Russian resort city of Anapa to Kiyikoy in northwestern Turkey, before connecting to overground pipelines that run up through the Balkans to Europe.

- 'Sovereignty' -

After the claimed attack, EU member Hungary, which receives Russian gas via the route, called on its "security and operability" to be "respected by all".

"The security of energy supply is a sovereignty issue, so any action that threatens the security of our energy supply must be seen as an attack on sovereignty," Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Facebook.

Austria and Slovakia had contracts for Russian gas via the now-cancelled Ukrainian transit route, with both countries saying they had secured alternative supplies.

The Kremlin on Monday also accused the United States of "destabilising" the world energy market through fresh sanctions on Russian oil producers.

The United States and Britain on Friday announced sanctions against Russia's energy sector, including oil giant Gazprom Neft and 180 ships it says are part of Moscow's "shadow fleet", just days before outgoing President Joe Biden leaves office.

"Such decisions cannot but lead to a certain destabilisation of the global energy market," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

The 27-member EU has been reducing its dependence on Russian gas since Moscow launched its full-scale military offensive on Ukraine in February 2022.

Despite imports via pipeline having fallen, several European countries have increased their purchases of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG), which is transported by sea.

- Seeking the upper hand -

Russia also used to ship gas to Germany via the Nord Stream pipeline that runs under the Baltic Sea.

Both lines were blown up in a sabotage attack in 2022, which also hit one of the two Nord Stream 2 lines -- a second undersea pipeline between Russia and Germany that was never put into operation.

Ukraine's halt of gas transit has triggered a diplomatic row with Slovakia, which is facing higher costs to secure alternative gas supplies.

A delegation from the country was in Moscow on Monday, a day after Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico of lying and arrogance over the transit dispute.

On the battlefield, Russia claimed its forces had captured the village of Pishchane, southwest of the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, which Moscow is pressing to capture.

Both sides are looking to secure the upper hand in the fighting ahead of US president-elect Donald Trump returning to office next week.

The Kremlin on Monday said there were no "substantive preparations" for a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, a week after Trump said such a meeting was being arranged.

H.Darwish--SF-PST