Czech President considers Nord Stream gas pipelines legitimate targets in war

Czech President Petr Pavel considers the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines to be legitimate targets for attack in the Russo-Ukrainian war, although he stresses that he has no evidence of Ukraine's involvement in the attack.

Source: Pavel on the PoliTalk podcast, as quoted by Novinky 

Details: Pavel noted that when an armed conflict occurs, it is waged not only against military targets, but also against strategic ones.

Quote: "And pipelines are a strategic target. If the attack was aimed at cutting off the supply of gas and oil to Europe and returning money back to Russia, then – and I'm speaking hypothetically – it would be a legitimate target." 

More details: At the same time, Pavel stressed that he had no clear information that Ukraine was behind the pipeline bombings.

Pavel also rejected the suggestion that the attack on the pipelines had caused significant problems for Europeans: "At the time, we already had a number of alternatives, so Nord Stream was not a critical pipeline on which Europe's energy security depended. Of course, it caused some complications, but not the ones that we could not handle."

He added that pipelines have always been and will always be a target because they have the potential to influence a conflict in one direction or another.

Background:

• On 15 August, The Wall Street Journal reported that Ukrainian top officials were involved in the blowing up of a gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea. In particular, it was claimed that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had approved the operation to blow up Nord Stream and then tried unsuccessfully to cancel it. The operation was supposedly carried out under the supervision of Valerii Zaluzhnyi, former Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
• Kyiv denies any involvement of Ukrainian top officials. The German investigation also found no evidence of their involvement.
• At the same time, it was revealed that the German Prosecutor General had issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian citizen in connection with suspected involvement in the attack.

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