Kremlin: several people arrested after attempt to carry out ‘terrorist attack’ on TurkStream

Saboteurs were captured during an attempt to conduct a “terrorist attack” on the TurkStream gas pipeline, several people were arrested, press secretary of the Russian president Dmitry Peskov says. 

“Certain forces, Putin has given hints about the possible origin of these forces, <...> had already [tried to attack] the TurkStream. Saboteurs were captured, several people were arrested. They wanted to blow up [the TurkStream]. On our territory, on land,” Peskov said, as quoted by Russia’s news agency Interfax. 

Today, 13 October, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. During the meeting, Putin proposed to create a new gas hub for selling gas to Europe. “Turkey has ended up being the safest route for gas deliveries into Europe thanks to your stance, Mr. President, on building TurkStream. Despite the fact that, as you’ve heard, there were attempts to blow it up on Russian territory. But thank God, it didn’t happen,” Putin said. 

According to the Russian president, the gas pipeline “is operating successfully”. “Yesterday, after consultations with your energy minister and head of Botas, we came to an agreement with Gazprom: if there’s interest from Turkey and our buyers from other countries, we could consider the possibility of building another gas pipeline system and creating a gas hub on the territory of Turkey to sell [gas] to third countries, primarily European ones, if they’re interested,” he added. 

On 10 October, Putin said that Ukrainian authorities had tried to blow up one of the sections of TurkStream. 

“A whole series of terrorist attacks and attempts of similar crimes in regards to electricity objects and gas transportation infrastructure of our country has been carried out,” he claimed. According to Putin, this is proven by “objective data, including testimonies of the detained executors of these terrorist attacks”.