Ukraine said yesterday it was treating an explosion on a pipeline carrying Russian natural gas to the rest of Europe as a possible “act of terrorism”.
The government, which is facing a rebellion by pro-Russian separatists in east Ukraine, said the blast in central Ukraine – one day after Russia cut gas supplies to Kiev in a pricing dispute – did not disrupt gas flows to the EU.
But Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said: “Several theories of what happened are being considered including the key theory – an act of terrorism.
“According to local residents, they heard two big bangs just before the explosion which could indicate they were deliberate.”
The Energy Ministry also suggested there may have been foul play, without speculating who might have been behind the blast.
“It is not the first attempted terrorist attack on the Ukrainian gas transportation system,” the ministry said in a statement, referring to two explosions on transit pipelines in the western part of the country in May.
Yesterday’s blast was in the Poltava region, which is far from the violence that has rocked east Ukraine, where the pro-Russian separatists have risen up against central rule.
The Urengoy-Pomary-Uzhgorod which was hit yesterday is the main transit pipeline carrying Russian gas to the EU via Ukraine.
Kiev’s relations with Moscow are in crisis following Russia’s annexation of the Crimea region. Russia stopped supplying Ukraine with gas on Monday but Kiev said it was guaranteeing the gas flow to the EU.
Police in Poltava region said the blast was at 1.20pm and hit the pipeline about two metres below a field. There were no casualties.
Video footage showed smoke rising high into the sky.
Ukrainian state-run gas transport monopoly Ukrtransgaz said there was no disruption and a source at Russian gas producer Gazprom said: “Exports have not been cut. There is a parallel pipeline.”
The emergency services said the blast was caused by the pipeline becoming depressurised, though it did not say what caused it to do so.
• Ukraine’s leaders are puzzling over how to cut off Russian support for a separatist rebellion in the east of the country but one of its richest men thinks he has the answer.
Billionaire businessman Ihor Kolomoisky has suggested building a wall along the almost 2,000km land border with Russia to prevent fighters and weapons flooding in.
The idea may sound absurd but Kolomoisky has offered to stump up €100 million to fund the two-metre-high wall of reinforced steel, complete with electronic alarms, trenches and minefields.
What’s more, it’s been done before. Israel has constructed a barrier to keep out Palestinian militants. China built the Great Wall to stop invaders. Soviet-led East Germany erected the Berlin Wall, though more to keep people in than out.
“We can take on this project from start to finish,” said Alexei Burik, deputy head of the Dnipropetrovsk region where Kolomoisky is the governor, offering to lead construction work.
President Petro Poroshenko may or may not be about to build such a wall but the growing discussion of the oligarch’s idea highlights deep security concerns in Ukraine, three months after Russia annexed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea.
The Russian invasion of east Ukraine expected by many Ukrainians has not come. But in several weeks of fighting, pro-Russian separatists have seized a number of border posts, enabling them to bring in weapons and other supplies.
Securing the long and winding, and notoriously porous, border has become Poroshenko’s most pressing problem as he tries to put down the rebellion and hold Ukraine together.
Kolomoisky, a 51-year-old banking, media, energy and metallurgy magnate with a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at $1.8 billion, has presented his plan to Poroshenko and reckons the wall can be built in about six months.