Britain on Saturday denied Russian claims that British navy personnel blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines last month, calling them "false claims of an epic scale".

"To detract from their disastrous handling of the illegal invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defense is resorting to peddling false claims of an epic scale," a spokesperson for Britain's ministry of defense said.

Earlier on Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that representatives of a UK Navy unit blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines and accused the UK of being "involved" in the attack on Russia's Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol port.   

"Representatives of this unit of the British Navy took part in the planning, provision and implementation of a terrorist attack in the Baltic Sea on September 26 that blew up the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines," Russia's defense ministry said in a statement.   

Russia claimed on Saturday that Ukraine launched a drone attack on Sevastopol port – home to Russia's Black Sea Fleet, which Sevastopol governor Mikhail Razgozhaye called the "most massive" drone attack on the Crimean peninsula since February. Ukraine has yet to respond to the claim.

Russian Defense Ministry said that nine unmanned aerial vehicles and seven autonomous marine unmanned vehicles were used by Kyiv during the attack on Sevastopol.  

The ministry said a sea minesweeper of the Black Sea Fleet received minor damage due to the Ukrainian attack, adding that the ships of the Black Sea Fleet attacked by Ukraine are involved in ensuring the security of the "grain corridor."  

Pipeline mystery

Sweden and Denmark have both concluded that four leaks on Nord Stream 1 and 2 were caused by explosions, but have not said who might be responsible. Secretary-General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Jens Stoltenberg has called the damage an act of sabotage.

Sweden has ordered additional investigations to be carried out into the damage done to the pipelines, the prosecutor in charge of the case said in a statement on Friday.

The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines have a joint annual capacity of 110 billion cubic meters - more than half of Russia's normal gas exports volumes.

(With input from agencies)