Berlin wants good relations with Moscow, but such things as the situation around opposition leader Alexei Navalny and insufficient progress in resolving the situation in Ukraine cannot be ignored, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Wednesday.

"On the one hand, we would like good strategic relations with Russia, but on the other hand, we are dealing with reality – the Navalny case and the lack of progress in Ukraine," she said during her speech in the Bundestag.

Among the difficulties in German-Russian relations, she mentioned the murder of Tornike K. (Zelimkhan Khangoshvili) in the summer of 2019 in Berlin's Tiergarten park, and Russian citizen who was later detained on suspicion of that murder.

At the same time, Merkel said that the German government has not changed its attitude to the project for the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline.