The US will impose sanctions on the operator of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and target its top executives with personal restrictions, President Joe Biden said in a statement on Wednesday.
“I have directed my administration to impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG and its corporate officers. These steps are another piece of our initial tranche of sanctions in response to Russia’s actions in Ukraine,” he said.
Washington “will not hesitate” to take further action against Russia should it continue “to escalate” the situation, Biden warned. The ongoing developments have “provided the world with an overwhelming incentive to move away from Russian gas and to other forms of energy,” he claimed, without specifying said energy sources.
The new wave of anti-Russian sanctions comes after Moscow recognized the breakaway Donetsk (DPR) and Lugansk (LPR) People’s Republics as independent states. Russia has already signed friendship and cooperation treaties with the republics. The country’s parliament has granted President Vladimir Putin permission to use military forces abroad, paving the way for a potential peacekeeping mission to be deployed into the region.
The Donetsk and Lugansk republics broke away from Ukraine back in 2014 after the democratically-elected government was ousted in Kiev following the Maidan events. An armed conflict between the Ukrainian troops sent to retake the territories by force and the local forces became a frozen one after the signing of the Minsk agreements, but the republics and Moscow insist that Ukraine has been preparing to launch a new all-out offensive, which Kiev denies.