Czech President Calls Russian Gas Pipelines Ukraine's Strategic Goal

Pipelines are a legitimate target for Ukraine in its war against Russia, Czech President Petr Pavel said in an interview with Novinky. The interviewer asked the president to comment on Ukraine and the Ukrainian leadership's involvement in the blowing up of Nord Stream's branches in the Baltic Sea two years ago.

Pavel said he had no information about whether Ukraine was behind the attack on the underwater gas pipeline, but "pipelines are a strategic target." The actions of the parties to an armed conflict can be directed not only against military targets, but also against "targets of a strategic nature," the Czech president is sure. "If the attack was aimed at cutting off gas and oil supplies to Europe and the flow of money to Russia, then - I say this deliberately conditionally - it would be a legitimate target," Pavel explained.

For European countries, according to the Czech president, the cessation of gas supplies via Nord Stream did not create critical complications. By that time, the Europeans already had “a number of alternatives,” and Nord Stream was not a critical pipeline on which the continent’s energy security depended, Pavel said.

According to the head of the Czech state, if Ukraine's involvement in the gas pipeline explosion is finally proven, this could affect the willingness of European countries to provide assistance to Ukraine. However, Pavel noted, "we have no choice now but to support Ukraine." The reason is that Europeans want to live in a world where one country cannot attack another "just because it is bigger and stronger," the Czech president explained.

A few days ago, the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal, citing its sources,reported that the operation to blow up the Nord Stream gas pipeline was prepared and carried out by a group of Ukrainian military and businessmen against the will of President Volodymyr Zelensky. The sources claimed that Zelensky initially approved the plan for the operation, but the US Central Intelligence Agency found out about it and asked the Ukrainian president to cancel the operation. However, the then Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valeriy Zaluzhny disobeyed Zelensky's order to cancel the operation and continued preparing the sabotage.

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