Monday’s Kremlin statement stated that sanctions from Western countries were responsible for the complete shutdown of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which links Russia and Germany.
Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, stated that sanctions are “causing chaos” regarding maintenance work on the pipeline. He also rejected the claim that Russia has cut off supplies to Europe.
Gazprom has stopped all gas supply to the pipeline after it discovered an oil leak last week during maintenance.
This is Russia’s most explicit admission that cuts to energy supplies are not a result of technical faults but retaliation for western sanctions.
According to the Kremlin, sanctions have prevented Siemens Energy from supplying and servicing equipment for the pipeline. This is in order to repair an oil leak at the Portovaya compressor station.
Peskov stated Monday that problems with gas supply resulted from sanctions imposed by Western countries, including Germany and Britain.
He stated, “There are no other causes that could lead to problems with supplies.”
Peskov stated that, if sanctions were lifted the repair work could easily be completed and gas flow could resume.
Gazprom stated that Nord Stream 1’s pipeline, which Portovaya is filling would remain closed for the time being. This effectively extended an outage that was supposed to end at 0100 GMT on Sept 3.
“In the past, this type of leakage has not caused a shutdown of operations.” Siemens Energy does not have a contract to perform maintenance work at the moment, but is available for standby,” the company stated.
Siemens Energy stated, “Irrespective of this, we have already repeatedly pointed out that there are sufficient turbines at the Portovaya compressor stations for Nord Stream 1 operation to operate,”
