Italy to summon Russian envoy over Nord Stream sabotage

The Italian Foreign Ministry will summon Russian Ambassador Sergey Razov on October 3, the Russian embassy in Rome said on October 2.

After Razov's visit to the Italian ministry the embassy would issue a statement, the diplomatic mission told journalists, according to UrduPoint News.

Later in the day, Italian Minister for Ecological Transition Roberto Cingolani said that Razov would be summoned to discuss the recent sabotage of Nord Stream pipelines, although the crisis in Ukraine would also be broached.

"Clarifying the situation with the sabotage of Nord Stream is on the agenda. They will start with the sabotage of Nord Stream and move on to discussing (the conflict in Ukraine)," Cingolani told Italian broadcaster Rai3.

On September 26, the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 offshore pipelines in the Baltic Sea were damaged by explosions and rendered inoperative.

The Swedish and Danish authorities said they discovered gas leaks caused by undersea explosions, with the consensus being that the incident was a result of sabotage. The Russian Prosecutor General's Office said on Wednesday that it was investigating the pipeline explosions as acts of international terrorism.

On September 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke in the Kremlin following the results of referendums in the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics and the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, after which he signed agreements on their admission to Russia.

Following Putin's address, a number of countries including Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Latvia summoned Russian ambassadors to protest the accession of new regions to Russia.