If Ukrainians did destroy Nord Stream, they may have been justified, Czech president argues

Last week, after a 19-month investigation to identify who blew up the Nord Stream gas pipeline between Russia and Germany in September 2022, Berlin issued an arrest warrant for a Ukrainian diving instructor.
As Europe waits to see the evidence — and to learn what, if any, consequences will be attached to any alleged involvement by Kyiv — Czech President Petr Pavel has said the pipeline may have been a legitimate target. If, that is, Ukraine was even behind its sabotage.
“When an armed conflict is waged, it is waged not only against military objectives, but also against objectives of a strategic nature. And pipelines are a strategic goal,” Pavel said Wednesday on the PoliTalk podcast.
United Nations officials said in April that the UN is not in a position to verify any claims surrounding the Nord Stream explosions, but multiple delegates condemned them as attacks on civilian infrastructure that threatened Europe’s economic and energy security. Wholesale gas and electricity prices in the EU reached record levels in the second half of 2022, due largely to interruptions in fuel deliveries from Russia.
Underlining that he had no “incriminating clear information that it was really Ukraine who was behind the attack,” the Czech president theorized that “if the attack was aimed at cutting off gas and oil supplies to Europe and money [flowing] back to Russia, then — and I am deliberately using a conditional verb — that would be a legitimate goal.”
“But I don’t have that information.”