Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz spoke out against stopping the Nord Stream 2 project because of the situation with Alexei Navalny.
Speaking at a press conference following talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the Chancellor said that he fully agreed with Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen, who pointed out that there was no connection between the commercial project and the situation around the Russian blogger.
“For us in Austria, Nord Stream 2 is an economic project, still a positive project, because we are of the opinion that the more diversification, the better when we can use different routes for receiving or transporting energy to Europe”.
At the same time, he condemned what happened to Navalny, stating the need to investigate the situation and bring those responsible to justice.
Calls to suspend or close the Nord Stream-2 project came from European politicians after Berlin, citing military medics, officially announced that Navalny had been poisoned with a substance from the Novichok warfare group. After that, German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated that the issue of the gas pipeline and the incident with Navalny should be considered separately.
Russia has repeatedly stated that Nord Stream-2 is being built in the interests of energy security throughout Europe.
Navalny was hospitalized on August 20 in Omsk after he fell ill on the plane. Based on the results of the examinations, local doctors named the main diagnosis as metabolic disorder, which caused a sharp change in blood sugar. It is not clear what caused it, but no poisons were found in the patient’s body.
Recently, the Cabinet of Ministers of the Federal Republic of Germany reported that the conclusions of German experts were confirmed by the laboratories of Sweden and France, in parallel, the OPCW is conducting its own research at Berlin’s request. In this regard, the Kremlin said that Berlin did not inform Moscow of its findings, and the Foreign Ministry stressed that Russia was waiting for a response from Germany to the official request.
The FRG authorities do not deny that the German intelligence service BND has had access to the Novichok military poisoning agent since the 1990s.
On September 7, the Berlin clinic Charite reported that Navalny’s condition improved, he was taken out of a coma and disconnected from the ventilator. Today Navalny published his photo and said that the day before he was able to breathe on his own all day.