September 28, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Several European leaders have suggested three leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in the Baltic Sea were caused deliberately.

On Tuesday the Danish Prime Minister said she sees the leaks as “deliberate actions.” 

Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson also said Tuesday that the incident is “likely a deliberate action.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen referred to the pipeline leaks as "sabotage action" in a tweet Tuesday. She added that, “Any deliberate disruption of active European energy infrastructure is unacceptable and will lead to the strongest possible response."

Finland Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said Tuesday that the damage caused to the pipelines is "very concerning," following a call with his Swedish counterpart Ann Linde.

"There should be a full investigation into the incident. Sabotage to the pipelines cannot be excluded. (This poses) serious risks for the environment and shipping," he added.

Even Russia, which built the network, said the possibility of sabotage could not be ruled out.

Nord Stream AG, the operator of the pipelines, in safety documents published before any news emerged of the leaks, had said that the probability of a pipeline failure or leakage is “as low as one damage event every 100,000 years”.

Canada will impose fresh sanctions on “persons and entities” involved in carrying out “sham referendums” in Ukraine, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday. 

“Canada does not and will not ever recognize the results of these sham referendums or Russia’s attempted illegal annexation of Ukrainian territories,” Trudeau said. 

Some context: Pro-Russian authorities have held so-called referendums across Ukraine in the self-declared republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east and parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south. 

The votes - which are illegal under international law - have been dismissed as a “sham” by Ukraine and Western nations.  

An exclusive CNN poll of Ukrainians conducted in February, just before Russia’s invasion, found that no region of the country had more than one in five people backing Ukrainian "unification" with Russia.

A British ambassador has urged the United Nations to reject the results of illegal Russian-backed "sham" referendums in Ukraine.

During a United Nations Security Council meeting to discuss the war, the United Kingdom's Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN James Kariuki said the referendums were "an egregious violation" of the principles of the UN Charter.

"The very idea that a referendum on a fundamental question could be held at three days’ notice in the middle of a war zone is frankly farcical," he added.

"We must all unequivocally reject these illegitimate actions and Russian attempts to illegally annex Ukrainian territory," he said.

Russian state media say election commissions in four occupied regions of Ukraine have returned majorities in favor of joining the Russian Federation, following referendums described as a "sham" by Western governments and Kyiv.

The so-called referendums — called at short notice by pro-Russian authorities in occupied areas of Ukraine — are against international law and have been widely condemned by Western governments. They were not observed by independent monitors. 

Russian state news agency RIA Novosti said that the commissions had published the results of referendums in Kherson, Zaporizhzhia and the Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics. It did not say whether these were the final results.

The referendum plans were suddenly announced a week ago by Russian-backed local administrations and immediately welcomed in Moscow. 

Ukrainian officials say that turnout has been extremely low and that pro-Russian voters have been bused in from Crimea. 

Officials anticipate Russia could now move quickly to annex the four areas, potentially within days. Such a move could provide Moscow with a pretext to escalate its faltering war, which has seen Kyiv regain thousands of square miles of territory this month.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov previously indicated that if the regions announced majorities in favor of joining Russia, the ratification process would be fast and they could become part of the Russian Federation “quite soon.” 

Asked if that would mean any attempt by Ukraine to regain the territories would be regarded as an attack on Russian territory, Peskov said: “Of course.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that if the leaks in the Nord Stream pipeline were caused by sabotage, “that’s clearly in no one's interest.”

Speaking at a press conference at the State Department Tuesday, Blinken noted the cause of the leaks is being investigated.

The top US diplomat said it was his understanding that “the leaks will not have a significant impact on Europe's energy resilience.”

“What's critical is that we are working, day in, day out, both on a short term basis and a long term basis to address energy security for Europe and, for that matter, around the world,” he said.

In a readout of Blinken’s call, State Department spokesperson Ned Pride said the US was "united" with allies on promoting European energy security. 

The United Nations has expressed concern over the detention of thousands of demonstrators in Russia protesting against President Vladimir Putin's partial mobilization order.

“We are deeply disturbed by the large number of people who have reportedly been arrested in the Russian Federation for protesting after the authorities announced a partial mobilization of troops in the context of the armed conflict in Ukraine,” Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said Tuesday.

At least 2,398 people have been detained in various cities across Russia from Sept. 21 to Sept. 26, the latest data on Tuesday by independent protest monitoring group OVD-Info shows.

The Swedish National Seismic Network (SNSN) said Tuesday that it had detected two explosions on Monday near the Nord Stream pipelines.

The first explosion was recorded at 2:03 a.m. local time in the early hours of Monday and the second one 17 hours later, at 7:04 p.m. on Monday evening, according to SNSN.

SNSN said that one of the underwater explosions resulted in a tremor of 2.3 magnitude.

According to SNSN, the last time a similar seismological event was registered in the area was in 2016. It added that this area is not usually used for defense exercises. 

The German geological research centre, GFZ, told CNN that two tremors were registered at similar times at a seismic station on the Danish island of Bornholm, again close to the reported leaks on the pipelines.