Gas is seeping into the Baltic Sea from three separate leaks and an explosion on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines in what Ukraine calls a "terrorist attack".
The Danish energy agency confirmed there are two leaks on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline and a third in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in Swedish waters.
Danish armed forces say the surface area of the largest gas leak shows disturbance of a well over one kilometre in diameter.
Mykhailo Podolyak, Adviser to the Head of the Office of President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky , said the gas leak is "nothing more that a terrorist attack planned by Russia and an act of aggression towards EU".
He said Russia wants to destabilise the economic situation in Europe and cause pre-winter panic.
Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the leaks were caused by sabotage, while Denmark's prime minister and Russia said it could not be ruled out.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said: "It is too early to conclude yet, but this is an extraordinary situation and there are three leaks, so it is hard to imagine that it could be a coincidence."
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the leaks affected the energy security of the entire continent.
The Danish military released pictures of clouds of gas bubbles rising to the surface of the sea and Sweden's National Seismology Centre at the Uppsala University told public broadcaster SVT on Tuesday: "There is no doubt that these were explosions."
Nord Stream 2 was filled with 117 million cubic meters of natural gas but then ceased to operate once the war in Ukraine broke out.
Filling it to that level took weeks so pressure dropping virtually overnight was a huge indication of a major leak.
A five-mile exclusion zone for shipping was rapidly set up around Bornholm - a Danish island in the Baltic Sea close to Nord Stream 2 - and flights below 1,000 metres have been banned in the area.
If ships enter the area there is a risk of the leaked gas igniting over the water and in the air.
Methane partially dissolved in water is not toxic but will have catastrophic consequences on climate change.
The leak will also have a huge impact on gas delivery to the EU.
"The multiple undersea leaks mean neither pipeline will likely deliver any gas to the EU over the coming winter, irrespective of political developments in the Ukraine war.
"Depending on the scale of the damage, the leaks could even mean a permanent closure of both lines", said the Eurasia Group, a political consultancy.
“Our imagination cannot come up with a scenario which isn’t a deliberate attack,” a person involved in the investigation told the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel.
European gas prices rose on the news of the leaks. Prices in Europe climbed 7pc from €176 per MWh to €188 per MWh while prices in Britain climbed 3pc to 258p per therm.
Gazprom, Russia's state gas behemoth, said that high gas price has tripled their earnings despite Europe grappling to switch to other suppliers.
