The EU has threatened the strongest possible response to Putin for the deliberate sabotage of the Nordstream gas pipeline amid fears that Kremlin frogmen blew it up off the coast of Sweden.
Agents sent a strategic warning to European allies over the summer that Nord Stream 1 and 2 - key gas pipes linking the continent with Russia - were vulnerable to attack, it has been revealed.
Russia is offering debt repayment holidays and other benefits on top of high salaries to appease draftees as protests erupt around the country and people flee. It probably won’t help much, analysts said.
Europe must prepare for previously unimaginable threats to its undersea infrastructure, Germany s interior minister has said, after the Nord Stream pipe was blown up in a suspected Russian attack.