WASHINGTON — President Biden said on Wednesday he would impose economic sanctions against the company behind a new natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany.
Mr Biden’s move came as government officials warned that a large-scale military attack could be imminent. But it was also a sea change for the president after he waived sanctions last year against the pipeline, known as Nord Stream 2, despite calls from both Democrats and Republicans to halt the energy project.
“These steps are yet another part of our first tranche of sanctions in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine,” Biden said in a statement on Wednesday. “As I have made clear, we will not hesitate to take further steps if Russia continues to escalate.”
Government officials said Biden decided it was necessary to proceed with the sentences after Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced on Tuesday that he would suspend certification of the pipeline in response to Moscow’s order for Russian troops to cross the border. to separatist regions in the east of the country. Ukraine that has recognized the Kremlin as independent states.
The new sanctions target a subsidiary of Gazprom, a Russian company controlled by the Kremlin, and they are part of a united effort by NATO allies designed to stop what Mr Biden has described as “the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
On Wednesday, the European Union also announced new sanctions against the Russian defense minister, President Vladimir V. Putin’s chief of staff and high-profile Russians from the media world. On Tuesday, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on two Russian banks and a handful of the country’s elites and denied Russia the ability to raise funding in Western markets. The government said it maintained the possibility of even bigger sanctions if Mr Putin escalates the conflict by trying to take more territory in Ukraine — or even the entire country.
The White House has not previously issued sanctions against the gas pipeline company because it was unclear whether those measures would halt the project, which was 90 percent complete when Mr Biden took office, said Ned Price, a spokesman for the company. the State Department.
But on Tuesday, Mr. Scholz gave Mr. Biden an opening when he withdrew certification on the project.
“So by working with the Germans,” Mr Price said, “we’ve made sure that this is an $11 billion price investment that is now a piece of steel lying at the bottom of the sea.”
White House press secretary Jen Psaki described the action against the pipeline as part of an effort to end armed conflict.
“What we are trying to do is prevent a war and prevent devastation for the Ukrainian people,” Ms Psaki said. Referring to Mr Putin, she said: “We will continue to make it clear that if he continues to escalate, so will we.”
But there were few signs that this week’s initial sanctions had discouraged Mr Putin from pushing ahead in Ukraine.
The Pentagon released a dismal assessment on Wednesday saying that 80 percent of the 190,000 Russian troops and separatist forces in or near Ukraine are now in combat-ready positions.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline has caused tensions between Germany and the United States for years. Germany has long been hesitant to jeopardize its energy trade with Russia; Mr Scholz dodged last month whether he agreed with Mr Biden’s claim that the project would be halted if Russia invaded Ukraine.
Still, Biden’s move was welcomed by Democrats and Republicans who had called on him for a year to quickly punish Russia and shut down the pipeline.
Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz on Wednesday raised objections to 17 of Mr. Biden’s nominees, many of them for State Department positions, after the president announced sanctions against the company behind the pipeline.
Cruz had used Senate proceedings to slow the pace at which the chamber could approve Mr Biden’s nominations, and demanded that the government impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2.
“Having put Putin’s Nord Stream 2 online would have led to multiple successive and acute security crises for the United States and our European allies for generations to come,” Cruz said.
Ohio Republican Senator Rob Portman said the first sanctions announced by the administration this week were “an important first step” but did not “go far enough.”
“To create an effective deterrent, tougher sanctions need to be extended to other financial institutions and export controls put in place,” Mr Portman said.
Mr Biden had previously said the pipeline was too advanced to stop. “Nord Stream is 99 percent ready,” he said last year. “The idea that something would be said or done that would stop it is not possible.” Construction of the pipeline was completed last year, but the project approval process was stalled.
Daleep Singh, a deputy national security adviser, said on Tuesday that halting the project would sacrifice “what would have been a cash cow for Russia’s treasury”.
“It’s not just about the money,” Mr Singh said. “This decision will ease Russia’s geostrategic stranglehold on Europe through its gas supply, and it is a major turning point in Russia’s global energy independence.”
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Wendy R. Sherman, the deputy secretary of state, met with top European diplomats on Wednesday to coordinate economic sanctions against Russia, the State Department said.
On Wednesday evening, Mr Blinken said in interviews on three network news shows that the United States was still seeking a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine crisis, in which Russia recognized the independence of two enclaves that make up Ukraine and ordered more Russian troops to areas into. Mr Putin has assembled troops on three sides of Ukraine, and US officials say a full-scale invasion could take place at any moment.
Catie Edmondson reporting contributed.
