September 29, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Germany’s ambassador to the United Kingdom on Thursday said a fourth leak had been discovered in the Nord Stream pipelines connecting Russia to Germany and that there was a “very strong indication” these were acts of sabotage.

“It didn’t happen just like that. We think that there is a very, very strong indication these were acts of sabotage,” Miguel Berger, Germany’s ambassador to the UK, told BBC Radio 4 on Thursday.

“We have two gas leakages in Danish and two in Swedish economic exclusive zones,” Berger added.

CNN has reached out to Sweden’s coast guard but did not immediately receive a reply.

Berger said Sweden and Denmark would lead the investigation into the leaks but that results were likely to take up to 10 days because gas is still escaping from the pipelines.

Berger said that in Germany’s view, “everything indicated” the leaks were not the product of natural causes and that a non-state actor could not have caused this damage.

He did not blame Russia for the leaks but said it was too early to rule anything out.

Some context: Swedish authorities sounded the alarm on Tuesday about leaks in the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines – both of which run under the Baltic Sea near Sweden and Denmark, and have been major flashpoints in the energy war between Europe and Russia.

Neither pipeline was in operation at the time the leaks were found, but both still contained gas under pressure.

At least three people died – including a child – in missile strikes on the city of Dnipro in central Ukraine early Thursday, according to the head of the regional military administration Valentyn Reznichenko. 

The strikes damaged “60 houses and several high-rise buildings,” leaving a handful of residences “completely destroyed,” he added. 

CNN cannot independently verify the claims. 

European security officials on Monday and Tuesday observed Russian Navy ships in the vicinity of leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines likely caused by underwater explosions, according to Western intelligence officials and one other source.

It's unclear whether the ships had anything to do with those explosions, these sources and others said -- but it's one of the many factors that investigators will be looking into.

Russian submarines were also observed not far from those areas last week, one of the intelligence officials said.

Three US officials said that the United States has no thorough explanation yet for what happened, days after the explosions that caused three separate and simultaneous leaks in the two pipelines on Monday.

Russian ships routinely operate in the area, according to one Danish military official, who emphasized that the presence of the ships doesn't necessarily indicate that Russia caused the damage.

But the sightings still cast further suspicion on Russia, which has drawn the most attention from both European and US officials as the only actor in the region believed to have both the capability and motivation to deliberately damage the pipelines.

US officials declined to comment on the intelligence about the ships on Wednesday.

The prime ministers of both Denmark and Sweden said on Tuesday that the leaks were likely the result of deliberate actions, not accidents, and Sweden's security service said in a statement Wednesday that it cannot be ruled out "that a foreign power is behind it."

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on Tuesday evening also called the leaks "apparent sabotage" in a tweet.

But senior Western officials have so far stopped short of attributing the attack to Russia or any other nation.

The Kremlin has publicly denied striking the pipelines. A spokesman called the allegation "predictably stupid and absurd."

CNN has reached out to the Russian Ministry of Defense for comment on the presence of the ships.

Read the full report.

CNN's Oren Liebermann and Alex Marquardt contributed reporting.

Denmark and Sweden are investigating the leaks in the Nord Stream pipelines, but a site inspection has yet to be done and details on exactly what caused the explosions remain sketchy.

One European official said that there is a Danish government assessment underway and it could take up to two weeks for an investigation to properly begin because the pressure in the pipes makes it difficult to approach the site of the leaks. However, another source said the probe could begin as soon as Sunday.

The Danish government is taking the lead on the investigation and has put in place an exclusion area of five nautical miles and a one kilometer no-fly-zone, according to European sources familiar with the matter.

US officials have been far more circumspect than their European counterparts in drawing conclusions about the leaks.

But a senior US official and a US military official both said Russia is still the leading suspect – assuming that the European assessment of deliberate sabotage is borne out – because there are no other plausible suspects with the ability and will to carry out the operation. 

Russia has requested a UN Security Council meeting on the damaged pipeline this week – something the senior US official said is also suspicious. Typically, the official said, Russia isn’t organized enough to move so quickly, suggesting that the maneuver was pre-planned.

If Russia did deliberately cause the explosions, it would be effectively sabotaging its own pipelines: Russian state company Gazprom is the majority shareholder in Nord Stream 1 and the sole owner of Nord Stream 2.

But officials familiar with the latest intelligence say that Moscow would likely view such a step as worth the price if it helped raise the costs of supporting Ukraine for Europe.

US and Western intelligence officials believe Russian President Vladimir Putin is gambling that as electricity costs rise and winter approaches, European publics could turn against the Western strategy of isolating Russia economically.

Sabotaging the pipelines could “show what Russia is capable of,” one US official said.

CNN's Oren Liebermann and Alex Marquardt contributed reporting.

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Former Premier League soccer star Diniyar Bilyaletdinov has received a summons from Russia’s military registration and enlistment office, his father, Rinat Bilyaletdinov, told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. 

Bilyaletdinov, who made 59 appearances for English club Everton, is a Russian national and member of the country's Tatar ethnic minority group.

“Diniyar really received a summons. It’s hard to talk about emotions, because he didn’t serve, although he did military service, but it was specific, with a sports bias. That was 19 years ago,” the player’s father said. 

Rinat Bilyaletdinov argued that his son was incorrectly summoned as he is older than the cutoff age.

Some background: Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the immediate “partial mobilization” of Russian citizens, in an effort to bolster the Kremlin’s faltering invasion, following Ukraine’s gains in an ongoing counteroffensive. 

As part of the mobilization efforts, Russia will call up 300,000 reservists, according to Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. 

Putin moved to amend the country’s Criminal Code over the weekend and strengthen punishments relating to military service during times of mobilization, martial law or wartime, with Russians who fail to report for duty now facing up to 10 years in prison under the new regulations.

Diniyar Bilyaletdinov joined Everton in 2009 and played with the English Premier League side for three seasons. He played 46 matches for the Russian national team, scoring six goals and helping them win the bronze medal in the Euro championship in 2008.

The US Department of Defense has announced an additional $1.1 billion in security assistance for Ukraine.

The extra funds will come under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, meaning the money will be spent on manufacturing and providing new weapons to Ukraine. These weapons will not come directly from current US stocks of weapons.

Eighteen High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems and “associated ammunitions,” are included in the package.

The package also includes 150 Armored High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicles, 40 trucks and 80 trailers to “transport heavy equipment,” and additional radars for Unmanned Aerial Systems, among other items.

The US has committed “more than $16.2 billion in security assistance to Ukraine,” since the Russian invasion began in February.

The Ukrainian military claims that in some parts of Russia, the entire male population within a certain age range is being included in the partial mobilization ordered by President Vladimir Putin last week.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said Wednesday that the "so-called partial mobilization measures are ongoing in the Russian Federation and parts of the regions of Ukraine temporarily occupied by Russia."

The General Staff claimed that there are some cases of parents with several children and men over age 60 being mobilized for military service.

CNN cannot verify the claims, but Russian commentators and some regional officials in Russia have complained that the mobilization is poorly organized and has included the drafting of men specifically exempted from the decree.

The General Staff also said that "the lack of readiness to implement mobilization measures was noted at assembly points in the Belgorod and Rostov regions," both of which are close to the Ukrainian border. 

"Thus, newly arrived personnel must purchase winter uniforms and protective equipment at their own expense," it claimed.

CNN has reviewed a number of videos in the past few days showing Russian soldiers complaining about their lack of equipment.

A new package of sanctions against Russia proposed Wednesday by the European Commission will target more than 1,300 people and entities, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.

"This list targets key decision makers, oligarchs, senior military officials and propagandists responsible for undermining Ukraine's territorial integrity," Borrell said during a news conference in Brussels.

According to Borell, the new sanctions will target "those involved in Russia's occupation and illegal annexation of areas of Ukraine,” including “the proxy Russian authorities in Donetsk, Luhansk and Kherson and Zaporizhzhia and other Russian individuals who organized and facilitated the sham referenda in these four occupied territories of Ukraine." 

Borrell said sanctions would include high-ranking officials in the Russian Ministry of Defense — including Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu — and those supporting the Russian Armed Forces by providing military equipment and weapons.

The EU foreign policy chief added that "a lot has been done already" in terms of economic actors but that other non-Russian entities that may be “participating in the circumvention of sanctions” might be targeted too.

Borrell finished by noting that the EU will "extend the geographical scope of the restrictions applying to Crimea, to the Donetsk and Luhansk, that were approved at the beginning of the year. And this will cover all non-governmental control areas of Ukraine, including the oblast of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson which are not part of Donbas and were not part of the previous decisions."

US officials believe that the likelihood Russian President Vladimir Putin will use a tactical nuclear weapon in his struggling war in Ukraine is perhaps the highest it has been since Russia invaded in February — but is still not probable, multiple officials familiar with the latest intelligence tell CNN.

The intelligence community is closely watching for any signs that Putin's calculus has changed after the Russian President was widely perceived last week to be escalating his past threats to use nuclear weapons.

The threat is certainly "elevated" compared to earlier in the year, according to multiple sources. The United States in recent months has been privately warning Russia not to take such a catastrophic step.

But so far, there are no signs that Russia is imminently planning their use and the "general assessment hasn't changed," one source familiar with the intelligence said.

Several US defense officials, who said they see no indication at this time of Russia moving nuclear weapons around, said it's likely the US could detect movement even of smaller tactical warheads.

More background: Officials have long believed that Putin would only turn to a nuclear weapon if there was a threat to his own position, or if he perceived an existential threat to Russia itself — which he may consider a loss in Ukraine to be.

Some Russian military analysts believe that Putin's mobilization order may in fact decrease the short-term risk he will turn to a battlefield nuke because it will prolong his ability to sustain the conventional war.

The general sense inside the US government is that the threat is higher than before is based primarily on Putin's rhetoric and analysis of his mindset amid Russian losses in Ukraine, rather than any hard intelligence that Russia is more seriously weighing the nuclear option, according to two sources familiar with the intelligence.

CNN's Barbara Starr contributed reporting to this post.