Russia accused Ukraine on Monday of launching a drone attack on the infrastructure of a major gas pipeline that carries Russian supplies to Europe via Turkey. It said the facility was part of the TurkStream pipeline and accused Ukraine of trying to "cut off gas supplies to European countries".

Russia said on Monday it had downed nine Ukrainian drones that tried to attack part of the infrastructure of the TurkStream gas pipeline, through which Russian gas flows to Turkey and Europe, and called the attack an "act of energy terrorism".

Flows of gas via the Turkstream pipeline unaffected after air defences downed the drones, defence ministry in Moscow says

Ukraine is suspected for another attack on major Russian pipeline infrastructure. After mysterious explosions hit the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines near Denmark in September 2022, the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) allegedly told Belgian secret services that Ukraine could be responsible.

The Turkish Stream pipeline enabled Russia to avoid using Ukraine as a transit country when exporting natural gas to Europe, the Middle East Monitor reported.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday accused the United States of attempting to disrupt the TurkStream gas pipeline to Europe with the aid of attacks by Ukrainian drones. The US was pushing its "Ukrainian clients" to put TurkStream out of action following what he sees as its sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea in September 2022,