Two explosions early Sunday on pipelines running through southern Russia cut the natural gas supply to Georgia and Armenia, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said the blasts appeared to be accidental but investigators were still probing the causes. The ITAR-Tass news agency said agents from the Federal Security Service, the main successor to the Soviet KGB, traveled to the site of the blasts to help investigate. The explosions hit two pipelines in the region of North Ossetia, not far from the border with Georgia, Beltsov said. Repair work was under way, he said. ITAR-Tass quoted an Emergency Situations Ministry official in North Ossetia, Vladimir Ivanov, as saying that it would take two to three days to complete repairs.
