BELGRADE, April 6. /TASS/. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on April 5 that a sabotage attempt targeting gas infrastructure crucial for the country’s and the region’s energy supply had been prevented.

The sabotage attempt against the pipeline connecting Serbia and Hungary was intended to halt gas supplies to Bratislava and Budapest ahead of Hungary’s parliamentary elections on April 12, Srbijagas Director General Dusan Bajatovic said.

TASS has compiled the key facts about the attempted sabotage.

Report of sabotage

- On April 5, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said Serbian law enforcement agencies had discovered a cache of explosives near the gas pipeline connecting the country with Hungary.

- The incident was classified as an attempted sabotage.

- Later, Director of Serbia’s Military Security Agency (VBA, military counterintelligence), Duro Jovanic, said the agency suspects a foreign national of preparing the sabotage.

- According to Jovanic, hermetically sealed explosives, detonator caps prepared for transport, detonating cord and equipment used to prepare the explosives for sabotage were found near the pipeline.

- The VBA director emphasized that markings on the explosives indicate they were manufactured in the US.

Hungary’s reaction

- Hungary, Russia, Turkey, and Serbia agreed to strengthen protection of the TurkStream gas pipeline from possible attacks from Ukraine, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said after a meeting of the country’s Defense Council convened by Prime Minister Viktor Orban following the sabotage attempt on the Serbian section of the pipeline.

- After the sabotage attempt, Orban called for lifting the ban on Russian oil and gas supplies to Europe.

- He inspected the pipeline and a compressor station following the attempted terrorist attack on the Serbian section of TurkStream, which supplies fuel to Hungary and Slovakia.

- Budapest views the incident as an attack on the country’s sovereignty, since this route delivers the main volumes of gas from Russia, Szijjarto said.

- Ukraine is trying to cut Europe off from Russian energy sources while facing an energy crisis itself, Orban said. He noted that the threat to the gas pipeline remains.

Statements from Kiev

- Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said Kiev was not involved in the attempted sabotage on the TurkStream gas pipeline. The statement was published on the ministry’s Telegram channel.

International reaction

- The sabotage attempt against the pipeline connecting Serbia and Hungary was intended to halt gas supplies to Bratislava and Budapest ahead of Hungary’s parliamentary elections on April 12, Srbijagas Director Dusan Bajatovic said.

- In his opinion, Hungary was the actual target, since Serbia would not have been left without gas.

- The attempted sabotage has an international dimension due to its potential consequences for both countries, head of the security and internal affairs committee of the Serbian parliament Milovan Drecun said.

- He said the incident "must be viewed in a geopolitical context" in connection with the Ukraine conflict and the sharp deterioration of relations between Kiev and Budapest.

- Florian Philippot, leader of French The Patriots party, compared the attempted sabotage on the Serbian section of TurkStream to the explosions on the Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines in September 2022.

- Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik said the sabotage attempt on the pipeline connecting Serbia and Hungary was an act of terrorism and a threat to the entire region.

Russia’s warnings

- Speaking on February 24 at a meeting of the Federal Security Service board, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of possible attempts to sabotage the TurkStream and Blue Stream pipelines running along the bottom of the Black Sea.

- During a meeting with Szijjarto in the Kremlin on March 4, the Russian leader presented information about Kiev’s preparations to sabotage TurkStream.

- Budapest decided to strengthen protection of critical energy infrastructure from possible sabotage attempts from Kiev.