NATO warned of response if attack on Balticconnector is confirmed
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said that if a “deliberate attack” on critical infrastructure in Finland and Estonia is confirmed, NATO’s response will be “decisive and united.”
“In the event that a deliberate action is confirmed, NATO’s response will be united and decisive,” he said ahead of a two-day meeting of the North Atlantic bloc’s defence chiefs in Brussels.
Earlier, the NATO Secretary General said that in a conversation with Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, NATO declared its readiness to contribute to the investigation of the incident on the underwater gas pipeline.
The incident is expected to be discussed at a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels.
Norwegian seismologists said on Tuesday they had detected a probable explosion on the night of 8 October in the Baltic Sea near the Balticconnector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia.
Earlier, Gasgrid Finland, the operator of the pipeline and the Finnish gas transmission system, said the Balticconnector undersea pipeline between Finland and Estonia was shut down on Sunday night after an unusual drop in pressure in the pipe, which could indicate a leak. He then said there was reason to suspect that the incident was caused by damage to the offshore pipeline.
The Balticconnector is a gas pipeline between the town of Inkoo in Finland and the Estonian town of Paldiski. The offshore part runs under the Baltic Sea and is almost 80 kilometres long, the onshore part is 55 kilometres in Estonia and 21 kilometres in Finland. Provides Finland with access to the underground gas storage facility in Latvia at Incukalns, with a capacity of up to 2.6 billion cubic metres per year.
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