Russia's environmental regulator approved on Friday the construction of its leg of the Nord Stream gas pipeline to be built in the country's Baltic Sea waters, the project operator said.

Germany, Russia's key partner in the project to pump Russian natural gas to Europe, is expected to give its approval later this year.

Denmark was the first of five countries to approve the project in October 2009, and the governments of Finland and Sweden followed suit in early November.

"The granted authorizations were a major step that will make it possible to launch the gas pipeline construction in the spring of 2010," Nord Stream AG said in a statement.

Earlier reports said the construction could begin on April 1, 2010.

The $12 billion pipeline is designed to bypass the traditional transit nations of Ukraine, Poland and Belarus. It will pump some 56 billion cubic meters of gas annually from the northwest Russian port of Vyborg to the German port of Greifswald along a 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) route.

MOSCOW, December 18 (RIA Novosti)