Gazprom confirms 12 attacks on TurkStream and Blue Stream pipeline infrastructure since February 24

Two weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly accused Ukraine of plotting to sabotage the TurkStream and Blue Stream pipelines, energy giant Gazprom has issued a statement substantiating those claims with concrete data.

The company reported that facilities in southern Russia associated with the pipelines had been struck 12 times since February 24.

The most recent attack occurred on March 11, with the Russkaya compressor station as its target, according to Gazprom. The day before, the Beregovaya and Kazachya compressor stations came under assault.

All three facilities are located in the Krasnodar region. “These facilities are part of critical energy infrastructure and ensure the reliability of export supplies via the TurkStream and Blue Stream pipelines,” the company said, adding that all attacks had been repelled.

Cutting Europe’s gas supply: the stated objective

The pipelines carry natural gas to Türkiye and to southeastern European countries including Hungary and Serbia. Gazprom’s statement was followed almost immediately by a communiqué from Russia’s Ministry of Defence, which disclosed that, from the midnight hours onward, air defences had downed 10 drones over the Russkaya compressor station and 14 over the Beregovaya compressor station.

The ministry characterized the objective of the attacks as “halting gas supplies to consumers in Europe.”

The Kremlin calls developments ‘deeply alarming’

Less than an hour after those statements, the Kremlin weighed in. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the reported information as “very alarming” and confirmed that Russia had forewarned Türkiye about potential sabotage operations against the pipelines.

Peskov underscored that the pipelines’ role in continental energy security was “indisputable” — a significance rendered all the more acute, he noted, by the hydrocarbon supply disruptions arising from the war in Iran.

Putin: ‘They are using provocation to derail the peace process’

On February 24, at a meeting of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Putin had disclosed that Russian intelligence held information about a Ukrainian plan to destroy the TurkStream and Blue Stream lines in the Black Sea.

“They simply cannot calm down. They do not know what to do to wreck this peace process, which involves searching for a solution through diplomatic means. Their sole aim is to engineer a provocation and destroy everything,” Putin said.