Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said the military and police found two explosive backpacks Sunday near a gas pipeline to Hungary, prompting Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to call an emergency meeting of the defense council.
The backpacks, containing “two large explosive packages with detonators”, were found in Kanjiza in northern Serbia, “several hundred meters from the gas pipeline”, Vucic said.
The Balkan Stream pipeline is an extension of the Turk Stream pipeline that transports Russian gas to Serbia and Hungary.
Vucic said he had informed Hungary’s Orban “about the initial results of the investigation by our military and police authorities into the threat to critical gas infrastructure.”
Orbán called the pipeline part of “critical gas infrastructure” and said he would convene Hungary’s national defense council for a meeting on Sunday afternoon.
No details were provided on possible motives, but Vucic said there were “definite clues” that he could not immediately discuss. “Our intelligence services did a good job,” he said.
Vucic said the explosives could have “put many lives at risk” and caused significant damage to the pipeline.
Serbia, an EU candidate, is heavily dependent on Russian gas, importing about six million cubic meters a day at about half the market price.
Hungary also relies on imported Russian oil and gas.
In recent weeks, Orbán has repeatedly accused Ukraine of deliberately delaying repairs to a particular damaged pipeline through Ukraine, which has choked the flow of Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia.
Orbán has blocked EU approval of a €90bn loan to Ukraine over the pipeline dispute.
Hungarian opposition figures and many of his EU counterparts have accused Orban of exaggerating the pipeline issue to bolster his campaign for elections set for next week, with his party trailing in the polls.
Orbán denies the claims.
