US urges Ukraine to remain silent on Russian pipeline

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Those sources said that US officials indicated that the announcement of opposition to the upcoming agreement may harm bilateral relations between Washington and Kiev. Ukrainian officials have also urged not to discuss potential US and German plans with Congress. A senior administration official disputed these reports, noting that the situation was more accurate than that, but declined to share more details about US officials’ conversations with their Ukrainian counterparts.

US negotiators and diplomats have indicated that they have given up blocking the completion of the pipeline, known as Nord Stream 2, which would ship cheap natural gas from Russia to Germany and would be a boon for Moscow.

Meanwhile, they were trying to pacify a key regional partner in Ukraine – who would lose more than the pipeline’s completion – and rebuild the strained US relationship with Germany, which backs the pipeline. Reuters reported that President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel did not reach an agreement on how to deal with the matter when she visited Washington last week. “Good friends can disagree,” Biden said after meeting her.

In ongoing talks with Germany, US officials are trying to reduce the risks the pipeline will present to Ukraine and European energy security, the official told Politico. He added that US and German officials were in talks about the pipeline and its impact on Ukraine. They are looking for ways to reduce the damage to the young democracy.

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said last month that completion of the pipeline was a fait accompli. The senior administration official said the United States had concluded that sanctions would not be able to derail the pipeline’s completion.

The administration’s position is at odds with many members of Congress, the Ukrainian government and other Eastern European allies, who have long believed that U.S. intervention could still prevent completion of the pipeline, which is nearing completion.

The four people familiar with the situation, including a congressional source with direct knowledge, described the dynamics on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. Details began circulating around Capitol Hill late Monday.

Pressure from US officials on Ukrainian officials to withhold criticism of any final agreement the Americans and Germans reach will face significant resistance.

A source close to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Kiev’s position is that US sanctions are still able to stop the completion of the project, if only the Biden administration has the will to use it in the construction and certification stages. That person said Kiev is still vehemently opposed to the project.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration has given Zelensky a date for a White House meeting with the president later this summer, according to a senior administration official.

Critics of the prospective agreement between the United States and Germany on the pipeline say it will mainly serve the interests of Russia and harm relations between Washington and Kiev.

“It is unbalanced and unfair that Russia receives a huge bounty and that Ukraine is being flogged for criticism,” said Alina Polyakova, president and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis. “It’s 100 percent true that if Trump did this,” she added, “everyone would go crazy.”

The United States imposed sanctions on the pipeline during the Trump administration which halted the project. Germany’s finance minister has tried to strike a deal with the Trump administration that would fund the import of US liquefied natural gas into Europe in exchange for withholding sanctions for the pipeline, according to Germany’s Environmental Action Organization, as reported by RFE/RL. But Trump did not agree to the deal and there were disagreements within the administration about how far the sanctions should go, prompting Congress to strengthen the US sanctions regime.

Republicans and Democrats in Washington have long opposed the pipeline, which would extend from Russia to Germany and dramatically increase Western Europe’s dependence on Russia for energy.

“It is doubling imports of gas energy from Russia rather than investing in energy diversification – green energy in particular,” Polyakova said. “As long as you’re getting cheap Russian gas, why invest in other energy sources?”

The new pipeline would also be a huge blow to the Ukrainian economy, with Russia paying billions of dollars in transit fees for gas that passes through Ukraine on its way to Europe.

Nord Stream 2’s opponents say it would also reduce Ukraine’s influence in peace talks with Russia, whose incursions into eastern Ukraine have drawn international condemnation.

Congress last year approved a mandatory sanctions list designed to cripple the pipeline amid bipartisan concerns about its completion. The Biden administration earlier this year refused to impose those sanctions entirely as it works to rebuild the relationship between the United States and Germany, which has suffered under Donald Trump. Meanwhile, though, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) has been blocking key State Department candidates in order to pressure the administration to impose sanctions.

Completing the pipeline has long been a priority for Berlin, which sees relatively inexpensive Russian natural gas as a way to wean itself off dirty coal. Meanwhile, Biden called the pipeline a “bad deal for Europe” and emphasized that the United States did not want to see it completed.

Biden’s allies on Capitol Hill have been particularly frustrated with his position on the pipeline, prompting his administration to impose mandatory sanctions on pipeline-laying ships and other entities involved. This includes Nord Stream 2 AG, the company that was building the pipeline.

Derek Chollet, a Blinken consultant, is visiting Kiev this week to get Ukraine’s support. He also made a stop in Poland – where the US recently signed an energy security agreement worth billions – to try to quell criticism from elsewhere in the region. The Polish government described the pipeline as a threat to regional energy security, as reported by Reuters.

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has stymied relations between the United States and Germany for years. The 764-mile pipeline under the Baltic Sea is nearing completion and is seen in Berlin as a key to energy security, and in Moscow as a way to expand influence in Europe while filling its coffers. Some, like the former Pentagon official in charge of Ukraine policy, Evelyn Farkas, said she would have preferred to “wait” the Biden administration “to wait after the elections in Germany” before making this deal.

Merkel, who was in Washington last week, will leave office later this year.

Many in Washington continue to oppose the pipeline over concerns that it primarily benefits Russia, and both Democrats and Republicans have urged the Biden administration to prevent the completion of Nord Stream 2.

This led to friction. In May, the administration waived congressional sanctions on the pipeline because it argued that such actions would harm US-German relations, earning Biden and his team a strong rebuke from normally friendly political allies.

“The administration said the pipeline was a bad idea and that it was a malign Russian influence project,” Senator Bob Menendez (DNJ), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said at the time. “I share this feeling, but I don’t see how [the waiver] The decision will advance US efforts to counter Russian aggression in Europe.”

Meanwhile, Ukraine fears that completing Nord Stream 2 will reduce its role as a transit country for energy flowing from Russia to Europe. Meanwhile, German officials tried unsuccessfully to reassure Kiev.

“For us, Ukraine is and will remain a transit country even after Nord Stream 2 is completed,” Merkel said last week during a press conference alongside Zelensky in Berlin. Germany will continue to do so in the future after 2024.”

Farkas, the former Defense Department official, questioned whether compromising the pipeline with allies and partners is really the best use of the administration’s time. “This is the craziest deal that will be discussed at this time,” she told Politico. “There is no bigger crisis than global climate change, so dealing with this kind of reactionary bargain is crazy.”

America Hernandez in Brussels contributed to this report.

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