Norway fears Russian sabotage targeting oil and gas infrastructure

Norway, Europe’s largest supplier of oil and natural gas, fears possible Russian sabotage targeting its energy infrastructure. According to Norway’s intelligence service, Moscow is now much bolder in its efforts to thwart Western aid to Ukraine than it was a year ago, Reuters reported today. Russia denies carrying out sabotage, and the Russian Embassy in Oslo dismissed the Norwegian intelligence service’s warning as baseless.

“The level of risk has changed,” said Nils Andreas Stensønes, head of Norway’s intelligence service.

“We believe sabotage is now more likely. We see that acts of sabotage taking place in Europe now indicate that (the Russians) have become more willing to do this,” he said, referring to Russia’s increased readiness to carry out such actions.

The Russian Embassy in Norway rejected Stensønes’s comments. It said the West uses such accusations only to justify its chosen path of confrontation with Moscow.

European countries providing military assistance to Ukraine as it defends itself against Russia’s invasion have repeatedly reported possible acts of sabotage in recent weeks. Germany, for example, which is Ukraine’s largest arms donor after the United States, is investigating drone flights over critical infrastructure in Brunsbüttel in the north of the country. Brunsbüttel, in Schleswig-Holstein near where the Elbe River meets the North Sea, is home to a decommissioned nuclear power plant, a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal and a major chemical complex.