On June 17, a section of a gas pipeline that travels from Russia’s western Siberia to Ukraine’s far western city of Uzhgorod exploded, igniting flames that soared 100 meters into the sky above a wheat field in Ukraine’s Poltava Oblast. No one was killed in the explosion and multiple news outlets reported that the explosion will not disrupt gas supplies to Europe.
The Urengoi-Pomary-Uzhgorod pipeline is one of Russia’s most important natural gas transit routes; after Uzhgorod, the pipeline’s gas goes on to Central and Western Europe.
The explosion came one day after Russian state-owned energy firm Gazprom cut supplies of natural gas to Ukraine, demanding prepayment for future fuel shipments. In a statement released on the same day, Gazprom alerted the European Commission of “possible disruptions of gas transit.”
The timing of the fire led many to question whether Russian agents intentionally sabotaged the flow of gas.
“Several versions of the incident are being investigated,” said Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, according to the ministry’s website, “including the key version – a terrorist act.”
Reuters reported that at a government meeting on June 18, Avakov announced that his ministry assumes “that the explosive device was placed under a concrete block supporting the pipeline and that there were two explosions…We are studying the circumstances…external interference is the main cause we are focusing on.”
Later, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk called on authorities to “tighten the security of Ukrainian gas pipelines,” noting that the Ukrainian government “predicted a few weeks ago that there would be subversive acts aimed at undermining Ukraine’s reputation as a reliable transit country,” according to Interfax Ukraine.
Experts speculate that the explosion may be part of a broader attempt by Russian authorities to discredit the security of Ukraine’s transport systems. Russia is currently building a South Stream pipeline to Europe through the Black Sea, bypassing Ukraine.
Next month, Gazprom will bid in an auction for a 470-kilometer section of gas pipeline that travels along Germany’s eastern border. The OPAL pipeline connects to the 1,224-kilometer Nord Stream pipeline, which transports natural gas from Russia to Western Europe through the Baltic Sea. By disrupting the supply of gas through Ukraine, experts believe Gazprom is trying to convince the European Commission that transporting Gazprom fuel under the Baltic Sea is a safer alternative.
“I expect several accidents and even several shortages in supplies to the EU in the next month, and Gazprom will use them in negotiations with the European Commission,” says Andriy Chubik, an energy specialist and Executive Director of the Center for Global Studies “Strategy XXI” in Kyiv.
Chubik thinks “The Ukrainian side should pay as much attention as possible in the next month to pipeline security. It should be ready to counter sabotage attempts.”
The timing of the explosion, coupled with the fact that Russian journalists were on the scene photographing the fire less than 30 minutes after the incident suggests that the sabotage may have been premeditated and well coordinated, according to Chubik.
In recent years, Russia has been accused of blowing up gas pipelines to disrupt supplies and send political messages to its neighbors.
A January 2006 an explosion in southern Russia disrupted the supply of gas from Russia to Georgia and Armenia. The same day, two explosions severed cables providing electricity to Georgia. The Russian government declared the explosions an act of sabotage and launched a criminal investigation into the matter. Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili blamed the Russian government, calling the attack a “policy decision,” according to the New York Times.
In April 2009, a section of the Davletbat-Dariyalyk pipeline exploded near the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan border, disrupting the supply of gas from Turkmenistan to Russia. As the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies noted in a 2009 report, although Gazprom made no announcement at the time, “it later became clear that the company was predicating a resumption of deliveries on renegotiation of volumes and prices.”
In the leadup to Ukraine’s first post-EuroMaidan Revolution presidential election on May 25, the Security Service of Ukraine thwarted two attempts to blow up parts of Ukraine’s gas transit system in Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast.
Gazprom blamed Ukraine for failing to maintain the Poltava pipeline. Interfax Ukraine quoted Gazprom Deputy CEO Vitaly Markelov as saying that Russia has “made significant investment in reconstruction of [its] gas transportation system. The same cannot be said of Ukraine. A pipeline gets old, which leads to accidents…I think that there will be others…”
Kyiv Post Staff Writer Isaac Webb can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter at @isaacdwebb.
