President Biden has pulled back from a confrontation with Russia and Germany by waiving sanctions over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline after years of US opposition.
To avoid souring relations with Germany, the Biden administration decided not to impose sanctions that had been recommended on the company behind the pipeline and its chief executive. As the project nears completion, Biden’s move to limit penalties on Russian entities and ships involved in its construction was welcomed by Heiko Maas, the German foreign minister, but criticised by Republicans in Congress.
The Trump and Biden administrations loudly opposed the energy supply route through the Baltic Sea on the grounds that it would hand Moscow too much influence while potentially destabilising Ukraine by cutting it out of billions of dollars of transit fees for gas transported across its territory.
Maas revealed that he was told of the sanctions waiver by Antony Blinken, the secretary of state, to the delight of Russian officials.
A report by the US State Department to be delivered to Congress this week is set to conclude that the Swiss-based company Nord Stream 2 AG, ultimately owned by the Russian state company Gazprom, and its chief executive, Matthias Warnig, an ally of President Putin, engaged in sanctionable activity, but that it was in the American national interest to waive the penalties.
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A department source said that the Biden administration still opposed Nord Stream 2 but felt it was important to send a signal about its strategic commitment to rebuilding relations with Germany, which were damaged under President Trump.
“We see this as a constructive step, which we are happy to further discuss with our partners in Washington,” Maas said, adding that the Biden administration had not made any promises beyond the waiving of sanctions.
Yuriy Vitrenko, the chief executive of Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state-owned energy company, said that Nord Stream 2 was Russia’s “most malign and dangerous geopolitical project” and that Ukraine would ask Washington to apply its laws fully and impose sanctions to stop the pipeline.
Karine Jean-Pierre, a White House spokeswoman, said that the administration had been clear that the pipeline was a bad deal. German critics called for it to be abandoned because of Russia’s treatment of the opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Marsha Blackburn, a Republican senator for Tennessee, contrasted Biden’s de facto green light for Nord Stream 2 with his decision to scrap a new phase of the Keystone oil pipeline linking Alberta in Canada to Nebraska, and the disruption that hackers, allegedly based in Russia, caused to the Colonial petrol supply pipeline in the US this month.
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She tweeted: “Biden killed the Keystone Pipeline, but is waiving sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream II. This coming less than a week after the Colonial Pipeline was hacked. Why does Biden believe American pipelines are bad but Russian pipelines are good?”
Blinken held talks in Iceland last night with Sergey Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, on the sidelines of an Arctic council meeting. “If Russia acts aggressively against us, our partners, our allies, we will respond,” Blinken said at the start of the meeting.
The US’s top diplomat added that while it was “no secret that we have our differences”, the Cold War foes should work together in the name of global security, including on North Korea, coronavirus, climate change, Iran and Afghanistan, he said, as the two men struck a firm but optimistic tone in their first in-person dialogue.
The message was reiterated by Lavrov who said the US and Russia must co-operate “in spheres where our interests collide” and resolve residual issues from the Trump administration, “if we understand that discussions will be honest and based on mutual trust”.
