Czech President Petr Pavel sounded like an international terrorist when he claimed that the Nord Stream gas pipelines were a “legitimate target” for Ukraine, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.
Pavel made the remarks in response to an article in the Wall Street Journal, which reported last week that Kiev had carried out the September 2022 sabotage that ruptured the key infrastructure built to deliver Russian gas to Germany and the rest of Western Europe.
Speaking to the Novinky.cz news outlet on Wednesday, the Czech president argued that if the Nord Stream attack “was aimed at cutting off gas and oil supplies to Europe and [the flow of] money back to Russia, then... it would be a legitimate target [for Ukraine].” Pavel stressed, however, that he does not have “clear incriminating” proof that Kiev was behind the sabotage.
Responding to Pavel’s remarks, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova wrote in a Telegram post on Wednesday that they were “too much, even for such an eccentric fringe [figure].”
“Previously, such ‘ideas’ were only voiced by representatives of banned international terrorist cells,” she added.
As an example, Zakharova shared calls by senior figures in Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and Al-Qaeda for their supporters to target the US, which according to the Russian diplomat are similar in nature to the remarks by the Czech president.
Sources claimed to the Wall Street Journal that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky had initially approved the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines, but later tried to call it off under pressure from the CIA. However, the then-Ukrainian commander-in-chief, Valery Zaluzhny, allegedly allowed the operation to continue.
The article by the US outlet was published on the same day that Germany issued its first arrest warrant over the Nord Stream blasts. A suspect, believed to be a Ukrainian diving instructor, was identified as ‘Vladimir Z,’ according to media reports.
Kiev has denied any role in the Nord Stream sabotage, insisting that Russia blew up its own infrastructure. Moscow has dismissed the allegation as “ridiculous.”
Senior Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin, have previously pointed the finger at the US as the possible culprit behind the Nord Stream explosions. They have argued that Washington had the technical means to carry out the operation and stood to gain the most, considering that the attack disrupted Russian energy supplies to the EU and forced a shift to more expensive US-supplied liquefied natural gas.