The White House is expected to allow toughest sanctions on controversial Russian gas pipeline
Tensions between Moscow and Kyiv are at their highest in years, US President Biden announced a new round of sanctions following Russian President Putin recognizing two separatist pro-Moscow regions in Ukraine as independent. Follow here for the latest updates.
The White House is expected to allow toughest sanctions on controversial Russian gas pipeline
The Biden administration is expected to announce on Wednesday that it will allow sanctions to move forward on the company in charge of building Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, after blocking such sanctions last year using a national security waiver.
The move, described by three US officials, is part of a series of penalties the US and its allies have imposed on Russia this week in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recognition of separatist territories in eastern Ukraine as independent.
The move marks a significant shift in the administration’s policy toward Nord Stream 2, which had previously been to sanction some of the smaller entities involved in the project— including some Russian companies and ships that have been helping in the construction—but to hold off on sanctioning Nord Stream 2 AG and its CEO, Matthias Warnig.
US President Joe Biden and the State Department’s top energy official Amos Hochstein, who has been in charge of the diplomacy surrounding Nord Stream, had long been opposed to the project. But the concern was that imposing the harshest penalties on it would crater the US’ relationship with Germany, which insisted the pipeline was just a commercial project.
But now that Germany — after intensive diplomacy with the US — has agreed to halt the pipeline’s certification indefinitely, the US feels freer to allow the congressionally-mandated sanctions to move forward. Essentially, the administration wanted Germany to decide on its own to halt the pipeline before moving forward with more punishing sanctions on the project, the official explained.
The move is likely to be met with bipartisan support — Democratic and Republican lawmakers have long seen the pipeline as a potential threat to Europe because Russia has used its control over energy supplies to pressure countries in Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, by shutting off those supplies, even in winter months.
Concern in Congress about the pipeline has been acute enough that lawmakers passed legislation with significant bipartisan majorities in 2019, then expanded it in 2020, requiring sanctions against Nord Stream 2.
The administration, last year, waived the toughest sanctions, on Nord Stream 2 AG and its CEO, on national security grounds, prompting Republican Sen. Ted Cruz to hold up dozens of Biden’s nominees to top national security and ambassador posts.
CNN has reached out to the State Department for comment.
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