Biden warns no Nord Stream 2 if Russia invades
MOSCOW — In a flurry of diplomacy across two continents, President Biden emerged from a meeting with Germany’s new leader Monday vowing the crucial Nord Stream 2 Russiato-Germany gas pipeline would be blocked if Russia further invades Ukraine. Russia’s Vladimir Putin said the U.S. and its allies were the only ones talking about invasion.
Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron met for hours in Moscow at the same time Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke in the White House in efforts to defuse the crisis before armed conflict breaks out. Russia has massed thousands of troops at the Ukraine border, adding military might almost daily.
The White House has expressed increasing alarm about the prospects of a war, and Biden has been looking to solidify support among European allies for economy-jarring sanctions against Russia if it moves further with an invasion.
“We are jointly ready, and all of NATO is ready,” Biden said, referring to the powerful Western alliance, though Ukraine is not a member.
While Biden reiterated with certitude that the pipeline would not move forward, Scholz stressed the need to keep some ambiguity about sanctions in order to press Russia to de-escalate the crisis.
“It’s necessary for Russia to understand that a lot more could happen than they’ve perhaps calculated with themselves,” Scholz said.
Putin described his lengthy talks with Macron at the Kremlin as businesslike. He noted that the U.S. and its NATO allies have ignored Moscow’s demands for security guarantees.
He said that NATO’s expansion eastward to Russia’s border has violated the security principles of international agreements and scoffed at Western assurances that it is a defensive alliance that doesn’t threaten Russia.
“People of Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan have learned it from their own experience,” the Russian leader said in a sarcastic reference to the U.S. allies’ involvement in military campaigns in those countries. He also referenced NATO’s 1999 bombing campaign in the former Yugoslavia. He derided the Western criticism of the Russian military buildup near Ukraine, saying that “NATO members consider it possible to lecture us about our troop movements on our own territory and cast them as a threat of Russian invasion in Ukraine.”
Russia demands that the U.S. and its allies bar Ukraine and other former Soviet nations from joining NATO, halt weapons deployments there and roll back NATO forces from Eastern Europe. Washington and NATO reject those demands.