Serbian and Hungarian leaders said on Sunday that explosives were discovered close to a pipeline in northern Serbia that carries Russian gas to Hungary.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić posted on Instagram: “Our units found an explosive of devastating power.” He said “two large packages of explosives with detonators” were located in Kanjiza, a few hundred metres from the Balkan Stream gas pipeline.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán convened his country’s Defense Council to review the situation and said, “According to information that we have […] there was an act of sabotage prepared.” Neither leader immediately released further details or photographs of the devices.
Balkan Stream runs through Bulgaria and Serbia and links Hungary to Russian gas sent under the Black Sea to Turkey. Both Serbia and Hungary rely heavily on imported Russian energy.
Ukraine rejected any involvement. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi said: “We categorically reject attempts to falsely link Ukraine to the incident with explosives found near the Turkstream pipeline in Serbia. Ukraine has nothing to do with this. Most probably, a Russian false-flag operation as part of Moscow’s heavy interference in Hungarian elections.” Orbán, while suggesting Ukraine has tried in the past to cut Europe off from Russian energy, did not directly blame any actor for the discovery.
The announcement comes amid broader energy tensions: in recent weeks Orbán accused Ukraine of delaying repairs to a separate, damaged pipeline that has reduced flows of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia.
The timing also coincides with a week remaining before tightly contested Hungarian elections. Opposition candidate Péter Magyar accused Orbán of trying to sow panic ahead of the vote, posting a video saying, “Several people have publicly indicated that something will ‘accidentally’ happen at the gas pipeline in Serbia at Easter, a week before the Hungarian elections. And so it happened.”