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.
The Russian defence ministry said the attack was aimed against a compressor station in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia, but the facility was working normally and there were no casualties.
Reuters could not independently confirm the incident, and there was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
TurkStream and Blue Stream, which run under the Black Sea to Turkey, are Russia's last routes for supplying pipeline gas to Europe, after Ukraine at the start of the year refused to renew a five-year transit deal that had allowed Russia to keep pumping gas across its territory despite the war between the two neighbours.
The Russian statement said falling fragments from one drone had caused minor damage to the building and equipment of a gas metering station at the compressor, but emergency teams had quickly repaired it.
The gas pipeline begins at the Russkaya (Russian) compressor station outside the city of Anapa and runs to Kıyıköy in Turkey, and then on to Europe. Compressor stations are used to stabilise the pressure and flow rate of gas.
(Reuters - Reporting by Volodya Soldatkin; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)