Biden sees halt to Nord Stream 2 if Russia invades Ukraine

U.S. President Joe Biden said the controversial Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany would be stopped if President Vladimir Putin orders an invasion of Ukraine.

U.S. President Joe Biden said the controversial Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany would be stopped if President Vladimir Putin orders an invasion of Ukraine.

“We will bring an end to it,” Biden said at a joint news conference at the White House on Monday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in a short answer to a question about whether he had received assurances from Scholz. “The notion that Nord Stream 2 is going to go forward with an invasion by the Russians -- that’s not going to happen.”

Moscow has repeatedly denied that it plans to attack Ukraine, while the U.K. and U.S. say Russia has massed almost 130,000 troops close to the border. 

Scholz, who has tended to play up the urgency for diplomacy with Russia, was uncharacteristically forceful in warning about the potential price to the Kremlin. He was pressed on whether he would commit to sanctioning Nord Stream 2. The new German leader switched to English to make plain that there was no daylight between Germany and its allies. He made no effort to dispel Biden’s pledge that the pipeline would be stopped.

“We are acting together, we are absolutely united – and we will not take different steps,” Scholz said. “We will do the same steps, and they will be very, very hard to Russia, and they should understand.”

Earlier, his top diplomat said that Europe’s largest economy was willing to “pay a high economic price” that would come with supply cutoffs. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is a member of the Grens and has been more explicit than Scholz in pledging to target Nord Stream 2.