Completion of pipeline would be ‘victory for Russia’ and a ‘personal loss’ for Biden, says Zelensky
Ukraine has stepped up its pressure on Washington over the contentious Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to Germany, appealing to the US Congress to maintain sanctions against the project.
The Ukrainian parliament on Friday overwhelmingly backed a resolution calling on US lawmakers to override the Biden administration’s decision this week to drop some of the sanctions against the project.
The pipeline, which is nearing completion, would allow Russia to bypass existing gas transit through Ukraine. Kyiv has long argued that Nord Stream 2 would deprive it of valuable gas transit revenues and leave it more vulnerable to Russian aggression.
On Thursday Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said the completion of the pipeline would be “a personal loss” for Joe Biden and a “serious political victory” for Moscow.
Ukrainian officials are hoping to mobilise longstanding bipartisan congressional resistance to the project, which for years was strongly opposed by Washington. The Ukrainian Rada urged Congress to “use all available tools provided by US law to completely and irreversibly stop the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline by applying blocking sanctions against all participants in this Russian geopolitical project, including Nord Stream 2 AG”.
Sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, the company overseeing the project, were suspended this week by the state department. Sanctions on entities including ships laying the pipeline were maintained.
The Biden administration defended the move as a post-Trump era attempt to reboot relations with Germany, a top European ally which sees the pipeline as key to its energy security.
The resolution adopted by Ukrainian lawmakers came hours after Republican senators introduced legislation to reimpose sanctions on companies involved in the pipeline’s construction.
Republican senator Kevin Cramer said the administration was “acquiescing to a misguided German strategy which will give [Vladimir] Putin a grip on our allies in Europe”.
Ukrainian officials say that if Russia were able to bypass Ukraine, it would remove any deterrent to Russian intimidation of Kyiv. Russia this year deployed more than 100,000 troops along Ukraine’s eastern border and in Crimea, the peninsula it annexed in 2014. Ukrainian officials say Moscow has not reversed the build-up and may still be planning military incursions into its territory.
Ukrainian officials say that if Russia were able to bypass Ukraine, it would remove any deterrent to Russian intimidation of Kyiv. Russia this year deployed more than 100,000 troops along Ukraine’s eastern border and in Crimea, the peninsula it annexed in 2014. Ukrainian officials say Moscow has not reversed the build-up and may still be planning military incursions into its territory.
“The existing Ukrainian gas pipeline not only performs a transport function, but also acts as a protection for Ukraine from possible aggression by the Russian Federation. At the same time, for Russia, Nord Stream 2 is only a tool for manipulating and achieving dominance in Europe.”
Budanov said that 80 per cent of the Russian troops deployed at Ukraine’s border in March and April were still in place. With the Kremlin planning to hold large-scale military exercise in the region in August, when the pipeline is expected to be complete, Russia “will be in the greatest combat readiness to start hostilities against Ukraine” at the end of that month.
Yuriy Vitrenko, CEO of Ukraine’s state gas company Naftogaz, on Thursday called on Berlin, Washington and Brussels to stop the project.
“With thousands of Russian troops still massed on our borders, no single, non-military action would do more to protect Ukraine against Russian aggression than stopping Nord Stream 2,” he said in an open letter.
The stand-off over the pipeline poses a difficult geopolitical balancing act for Kyiv, which is looking for greater US military support and wants the Biden administration to take a more active role alongside Germany and France in faltering peace talks with Russia.