German chancellor candidate Weidel promises to re-launch Nord Stream

On Saturday, at a party conference in Riesa, the AfD elected its candidate for chancellor, Alice Weidel, for the first time.

In her speech after the election, Weidel said that the government with her participation would “demolish all wind turbines” in Germany and “restore the operation of functioning nuclear power plants.”

She also outlined the key measures she plans to implement in the first 100 days after coming to power.

Among other things, Weidel promised that Germany would once again receive Russian gas through the Nord Stream pipeline laid under the Baltic Sea.

“We will put Nord Stream back into operation, you can count on it,” Weidel said.

Today it became known that the far-right and the SPD have elected their candidates for German chancellor. Read more about the choice of each party in the RBC-Ukraine article.

Explosions at Nord Stream pipelines

The Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines were built by Russia's Gazprom to transit 110 billion cubic meters of natural gas per year to Germany and other European countries. However, Nord Stream 2 was never put into operation due to the Russian invasion, and Nord Stream 1 was shut down by Gazprom in the summer of 2022.

Three of the four pipelines were blown up on September 26, 2022. Investigations indicate that Russian warships were highly active near the Nord Stream pipelines immediately before the explosion.

The media also reported that a private group of Ukrainian saboteurs on a yacht could be behind the explosion, but this version is not being considered seriously.

In February 2024, Denmark and Sweden announced that they were completing their investigation into the Nord Stream explosions.