Hungary alleges plot to blow up gas pipeline ahead of crucial elections

Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - BUDAPEST— Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called an emergency defense council meeting on Sunday after powerful explosives were found near a pipeline in Serbia that carries Russian gas to the country.

The incident prompted political scrutiny in Hungary as Orban's party is badly trailing in opinion polls ahead of crucial elections next Sunday.

Orban said Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, a close ally, had informed him by phone about the discovery near Hungary's border with Serbia.

Opposition leader Peter Magyar accused him of "panic-mongering" orchestrated by "Russian advisers", days after security experts warned of a possible "false flag" operation that could be blamed on Ukraine.

Orban, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, has resisted EU calls to abandon Russian energy imports since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In recent weeks Hungarian security experts have raised the possibility of a staged operation, either on Hungarian or Serbian territory, intended to arouse enough sympathy for Orban to help his Fidesz party win the election - or to give Orban an excuse to declare an emergency and postpone or cancel the vote.

Two rucksacks full of explosives and detonators were found by the Serbian army near the village of Tresnjevac in the Kanjiza district, about 20km (12 miles) from the point where the TurkStream pipeline crosses into Hungary.

"Our units found an explosive of devastating power," Vucic said in a post on Instagram. "I told PM Orban that we would keep him updated on the investigation."

Hungary receives between five and eight billion cubic metres of Russian gas a year through the TurkStream pipeline, which both Hungary and Slovakia depend on for Russian gas.

Balint Pasztor, president of the Vojvodina Hungarian Association, and another key Orban ally, posted on Facebook: "If the investigation proves that we were not the primary target after all, but rather Hungary's supply lines, then this makes it even clearer: the terrorist attack was planned with the aim of bringing down Viktor Orban."

Fidesz has made hostility to Ukraine a cornerstone of its election campaign.

At election rallies Orban has told supporters that low heating and fuel prices in Hungary are only possible thanks to cheap Russian oil and gas, both of which arrive in Hungary by pipeline - oil through Ukraine, and gas through the Balkans.

Orban alleges that a "Kyiv-Brussels-Berlin" axis is conspiring to stop Hungary getting cheap Russian fuel, to impose their "puppet" prime minister Magyar in the upcoming election. A Tisza government, Orban says, would also drag Hungary into a European war against Russia.

Orban has already accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of imposing "an oil blockade" on Hungary, because no Russian oil has arrived through the Druzhba pipeline, which crosses Ukrainian territory, since the end of January.

Ukraine says the pipeline was damaged in a Russian attack, and should be functional again in-mid April. — Agencies