Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that the potential bankruptcy or sale of the operator of the completed but never launched Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline would amount to "theft".

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday accused the United States of attempting to disrupt the TurkStream gas pipeline to Europe with the aid of attacks by Ukrainian drones. The US was pushing its "Ukrainian clients" to put TurkStream out of action following what he sees as its sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines under the Baltic Sea in September 2022,

The Turkish Stream pipeline enabled Russia to avoid using Ukraine as a transit country when exporting natural gas to Europe, the Middle East Monitor reported.

Russia said on Monday it had downed nine Ukrainian drones that tried to attack part of the infrastructure of the TurkStream gas pipeline, through which Russian gas flows to Turkey and Europe, and called the attack an "act of energy terrorism".