Berlin has been assured by the United States that any sanctions imposed on Moscow will not affect the building of pipelines from Russia, according to a spokeswoman for Germany’s Economy Ministry. She said in Berlin on Friday that Germany opposed sanctions with extraterritorial effect, but in the specific case of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline linking Russia and Germany, guidelines that had been provided by Washington suggested that construction would be unaffected. It was not clear when these new guidelines had been provided, Reuters reported.