Georgia: Russia targets key oil pipeline with over 50 missiles

Russian jets targeted a key oil pipeline with over 50 missiles in a weekend bombing raid in Georgia that raised fears the conflict will tighten Moscow’s stranglehold on Europe’s energy supplies.

Deep craters pockmark the landscape south of the Georgian capital Tblisi in a Y-shaped pattern straddling the British-operated pipeline.

The attack left two deep holes less than 100 yards either side of a pressure vent on the pipeline. Shrapnel of highly engineered munitions litters the area.


There was no visible damage to the pipeline. Its vulnerability is summed up by a yellow hazard sign next to the vent warning against digging in the area. Anyone venturing on to the site is warned against smoking.

Local police recorded 51 strikes. “I have no doubt they wanted to target the pipeline, there is nothing else here,” said Giorgi Abrahamisvili, a policeman who witnessed the attack.

“It was terribly intense, the smell of cordite spread everywhere. I had to abandon my car and hide in a ditch but the jets weren’t interested in other targets.”

BP operates the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which transports one per cent of the world’s oil needs, or one million barrels a day from Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean. A spokesman played down the impact of the strike, pointing out that pumping was suspended last week because of a terrorist attack in Turkey.

Telegraph