Steinmeier’s “questionable historical arguments” were met with “astonishment and indignation” by Kiev, Ukraine’s ambassador to Berlin Andrij Melnyk said in a statement seen by dpa.

Steinmeier defended the pipeline by saying energy relations were one of the last remaining bridges between Russia and Europe, in an interview with the German Rheinische Post newspaper.

He pointed to the German invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II.

“More than 20 million people in what was then the Soviet Union became victims of the war. That does not justify any wrongdoing in Russian policy today, but we shouldn’t forget the big picture,” Steinmeier said.

Nord Stream 2 remains Russian President Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical project and runs counter to Ukrainian interests, Melnyk wrote.

“It is therefore cynical, particularly in this debate, to bring the horrors of the Nazi reign of terror into play and on top of that to ascribe the millions of Soviet victims of the German war of extermination and enslavement exclusively to Russia.”

Melnyk called it “a dangerous distortion of history” to not expressly mention the millions of Nazi victims in Ukraine, which at that time belonged to the Soviet Union.

Ukraine is among the fiercest critics of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is expected to bring 55 billion cubic metres of natural gas from Russia to Germany. It is nearly complete.

Kiev currently receives fees from Moscow for Russian gas supplies that pass through Ukraine to Europe. In the coming years, Russia plans to roll back the amount and instead send more gas directly to Europe through the Baltic Sea.