Pipeline may be the route to punishing Russia over Navalny poisoning

Angela Merkel is under pressure to abandon an underwater gas pipeline from Russia to Germany in response to the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is under pressure to act against Russia over allegations it was involved in the poisoning of Alexei Navalny. Picture: Getty Images

Angela Merkel is under pressure to abandon an underwater gas pipeline from Russia to Germany in response to the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.

Senior politicians in the German Chancellor’s party have ­accused Moscow of ­orchestrating the attempt on Mr Navalny’s life after a military laboratory identified the toxin ­“beyond doubt” as a chemical from the Novichok group, a family of potent nerve agents developed in Soviet Russia.

Mr Navalny collapsed during a flight across Russia on August 22 and is being treated at a hospital in Berlin. Germany is consulting its EU and NATO allies about new sanctions against Russia, but some German MPs have urged Mrs Merkel to take more aggressive action.

One option is for Berlin to pull out of the €10bn Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. It is intended to carry 55 billion cubic litres of gas to Germany each year, enough for two thirds of Germany’s consumption. Much will be sold on to other EU states.

More than 90 per cent of the pipeline has been laid on the Baltic seabed but sections in German and Danish waters have been ­delayed by administrative hiccups and US sanctions against companies involved in its construction.

Norbert Rottgen, chairman of the Bundestag foreign affairs committee, who is running for the leadership of Mrs Merkel’s centre-right Christian Democratic Union, said withdrawing from Nord Stream 2 would signal to President Vladimir Putin that his “aggressively inhumane” behaviour was beyond the pale. “There must be a clear, tough European answer,” he said.

Novichok was used by Kremlin hit men in an attempt to kill Sergei Skripal, a former spy, in Salisbury two years ago. Britain co-ordinated sanctions and expulsions of diplomats, but it is not clear whether Germany will follow suit.

Mrs Merkel, who has refrained from blaming Russia directly for the attack on Mr Navalny, has said she is waiting for an explanation from Moscow.

The Kremlin has dismissed the reports of its involvement as “empty noise”. “There are no grounds to accuse the Russian state,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

The Times