Russias Gazprom keeps gas pipeline to Germany turned off | Russia-Ukraine war News [Video]

Russian energy giant Gazprom has postponed a Saturday deadline to restore flows via a crucial gas supply route to Europe, citing an oil leakage in the Nord Stream 1 pipeline discovered during maintenance.

The energy company had shut down the pipeline on Wednesday for what it said would be three days of maintenance, but said in a social media post on Friday evening that it had identified “malfunctions” of a turbine.

“Gas transmission via the Nord Stream pipeline has been fully shut down until the operational defects in the equipment are eliminated,” Gazprom said in a statement, without providing a new timetable for when flows will resume.

The move compounds Europe’s difficulties in securing enough fuel for the approaching cold winter months, as Nord Stream 1 provides much-needed supplies to Germany and other European nations.

Moscow has blamed sanctions imposed by the West following Russia’s invasion of Ukrainefor impeding routine maintenance on the pipeline, but some European Union officials …