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View of the Pillar of Fire from the Novoye Devyatkino suburb of Saint Petersburg
Photo: STRINGER / REUTERS
In the north of St. Petersburg, an incident at a gas pipeline triggered a major fire.
"Fire and rescue workers are extinguishing the fire caused by an explosion on a gas pipeline between (the villages of) Berngardovka and Kovalyovo," wrote the governor of the Leningrad region Alexander Drozdenko on his Telegram channel on Saturday.
There is no information about possible victims or the cause of the accident.
The opposition channel Nexta showed several videos of the burning pipeline on Twitter.
At first it was said that an LPG filling station had exploded.
According to Drozdenko, there is no risk of the flames spreading to residential areas.
However, the pillar of fire is visible from kilometers away, as the videos on social networks show.
At the end of September, several strands of the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in the Baltic Sea were damaged by detonations.
Investigators have since found explosives at the scene of the accident.
The Swedish public prosecutor confirmed the suspicion of sabotage on Friday.
The Russian leadership, which spoke of an attack, blamed it on the United States or Great Britain.
fdi/dpa