On Sunday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel faced increasing pressure to rethink Germany’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline after Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was supposedly poisoned with the soviet era nerve agent, Novichok.
Federal Minister of Defence Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said sanctions on the pipeline, which will deliver gas from Russia to Germany, depended on Moscow’s assistance in clarifying what happened to Alexei Navalny.
Alexei Navalny, age 44, was airlifted to Germany after he collapsed on a flight from Tomsk to Moscow in Siberia in August.
Moscow has repeatedly claimed that no evidence has been found to suggest that Navalny was poisoned.
Karrenbauer said in a statement:
“I have always said that I am not fond of the Nord Stream 2 project,”
“To me it was always clear that the security interests of Eastern European states and Ukraine must be taken into consideration.”
Heiko Maas, Minister for Foreign Affairs, said in comments published on Sunday that an inability by Moscow to help clarify the circumstances of Navalny’s illness would add to the skepticism that Russia was involved in the suspected poisoning.
The Panthera Post 