Danish leadership suggests Nord Stream pipelines leaking natural gas into the Baltic Sea were purposefully sabotaged

• Damage to the Nord Stream pipelines was caused by intentional acts of sabotage, Denmark said.
• "These are deliberate actions. It was not an accident," Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said.

Recent damage to the Nord Stream pipelines, which are leaking natural gas into the Baltic Sea, was caused by "deliberate" acts of sabotage, Denmark's leadership said on Tuesday.

"It is now the clear assessment by authorities that these are deliberate actions. It was not an accident," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said at a press conference, Reuters reported. "There is no information yet to indicate who may be behind this action."

Denmark's energy agency said on Monday that it detected a natural gas leak in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline near the island of Bornholm, while Sweden's maritime agency reported damage and leakage from both the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2.

The Danish military captured footage on Tuesday of natural gas swirling at the sea's surface, and published photographs of the massive spill.

"Following the three gas leaks on the Nord Stream gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, prohibition zones have been established around the leaks for the sake of the safety of ship and air traffic," Denmark's Armed Forces wrote in a statement.

European officials on Tuesday said they believe the damage to the pipeline systems, which were built to transport natural gas from Russia to Europe, was intentional.

Denmark's Minister of Foreign Affairs Jeppe Kofod wrote on Twitter that he has been in touch with his Swedish counterpart Ann Linde and said "these are critical hours," adding that they "call for close international cooperation."

Terje Aasland, Norway's minister of petroleum and energy, said the information provided so far indicates that the damage was an act of sabotage.

Both Nord Stream systems have become a point of contention between Europe and Russia over Moscow's seven-month-long war in Ukraine, which has sent the continent spiraling into an energy crisis.

After Russia's late-February full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Moscow suspended gas flow through the newer Nord Stream 2, which wasn't yet operational. More recently, it has stopped gas flow through what was previously a fully operational Nord Stream 1.

Mikhaylo Podolyak, a top advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, pinned blame for the damage on Moscow, and called the Nord Stream 1 gas leak "nothing more than a terrorist attack planned by Russia and an act of aggression towards EU."

"[Russia] wants to destabilize economic situation in Europe and cause pre-winter panic," he said.