BERLIN, Feb 10 - Germany's foreign minister on Wednesday defended proceeding with a new undersea gas pipeline from Russia that faces strong opposition from the U.S. and eastern Europe, arguing that scrapping it could have adverse geopolitical consequences, AP reported.

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline would financially weaken Ukraine by killing up to $3 billion per year in gas shipment revenue by sending most of Russian Europe-bound gas bypassing the country.

Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the European Union must support the pipeline in order to be able to influence Russia in the future.

“Anyone who fundamentally questions Nord Stream 2 -- and you can certainly advocate that opinion -- must also consider, at least geostrategically, what consequences that will have and what that means for Europe’s abilities to influence Russia,” Maas said.

A “complete economic isolation” of Russia, together with a “decoupling” from China, would push those two countries ever closer together, “and I don’t think that should be the strategy of the West,” he said. “So I am against tearing down all bridges to Russia in this context.”

Separately, comments by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier drawing a link between Nord Stream 2 and Germany's debt over World War II have raised hackles in Ukraine.

Steinmeier had told daily Rheinische Post that Germany needed to keep in mind its eventful history with Russia. “There were phases of fruitful partnership, but even more times of terrible bloodshed,” he said, citing the 20 million people who died in the Soviet Union during World War II.

“That doesn't justify mistakes in Russian policy today, but we mustn't lose sight of the bigger picture,” said Steinmeier.

German news agency dpa on Wednesday quoted a letter from Ukraine’s ambassador to Berlin, Andrij Melnyk, saying Steinmeier’s comments in an interview last week “hit us Ukrainians deep in the heart.”

Melnyk accused the German president, whose role is largely ceremonial, of ignoring the fact that millions of the Nazis' Soviet victims were Ukrainians.

Germany's ties with Russia are currently strained over the poisoning of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the alleged killing in Berlin of a Georgian by a Russian government hitman, and by the conflict in Ukraine. (ap/ez)