Ukraine's leader to talk with Biden on security, Russian gas

Ukraine's president is visiting the United States in hopes of bolstering security ties with Washington and persuading the administration to ramp up sanctions against a new Russian gas pipeline bypassing his country

KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukraine's leader is visiting the United States this week in hopes of bolstering security ties with Washington and persuading the Biden administration to ramp up sanctions against a new Russian natural gas pipeline that bypasses his country. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called Washington's failure to block the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany a grave political error, and he is expected to again raise the issue during his talks Wednesday with U.S. President Joe Biden. Zelenskyy has described the new pipeline as a powerful geopolitical weapon for Russia, which annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014 after the ouster of the former Kremlin-friendly president and has thrown its weight behind a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine. Washington has strongly opposed the construction of Nord Stream 2, but the Biden administration has opted not to punish the German company overseeing the project while announcing new sanctions against Russian companies and ships.