KYIV, Ukraine — President Joe Biden’s cancellation of Trump-era sanctions meant to halt the completion of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is a blow to the Ukrainian economy that will strengthen Russia’s ability to wield its influence against the Eastern European partner, Ukrainian security analysts told the Washington Examiner.
The Russian pipeline that would transport gas through the Baltic Sea to Germany would displace older Ukrainian pipelines that generate an annual revenue worth around $3 billion. Biden’s about-face came after Secretary of State Antony Blinken had talked tough on the nearly complete pipeline. All companies operating on the line had been under U.S. sanctions until Biden removed them, bowing to pressure from German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
“It’s terrible for Ukraine,” said former Ukrainian national security council member Oleksandr Danylyuk.
“Russia knows how to use gas as a political weapon, and it’s a new leverage in Europe,” he added at a meeting in his office.
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The former finance minister and security adviser under President Volodymyr Zelensky said Biden’s move sends the wrong message to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Unless you take it serious, Russia will always win,” he said. “For Biden, it is important to get Germany on board now, and he has his own plans, unfortunately.”
The streets of Kyiv are much changed from seven short years ago, when Danylyuk said fellow government officials held real fears that Putin would invade and take the capital in three days. Historic buildings undamaged by World War II now have pastel-colored facelifts in the city center. Young people walk the cobblestone streets to new bars and art galleries in a city and country that is looking to the West and away from a neighbor bent on 19th-century-style imperialism.
John Herbst, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine during the George W. Bush administration, said Biden’s Russia-Ukraine policy had been strong until he pulled the plug on the Nord Stream 2 sanctions.
“Not only was that a strategic blunder of high significance, but then, he compounded it with major tactical mistakes,” Herbst told the Washington Examiner.
The Biden announcement came the same day Blinken met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
“Suggesting that it was not simply a gesture to Merkel, but also to Putin, which is exactly the wrong message you send to the Russians when they are committing aggression,” he said.
Former President Donald Trump was frequently at odds with Merkel over NATO ally Germany’s failure to spend 2% of its GDP on defense. Trump went so far as to announce the withdraw of 12,000 American troops from bases in Germany, something Biden promptly reversed once he took office.
Since then, Biden administration officials, including Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, have taken pains to repair relations with old treaty allies.
But Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, an Armed Services Committee member, said in an interview that Biden went too far.
“First and foremost, let’s not lift the sanctions on Nord Stream 2,” she said. “I am not understanding why that occurred, and nobody has fully explained in a reasonable manner why they did that.”
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“That enables Vladimir Putin, and it also puts us and our allies at a security risk,” she added, noting Ukraine is bearing the brunt of Russian aggression in recent months, having seen a buildup of some 100,000 Russian troops along its eastern border.
“We have many other countries in Eastern Europe and beyond that are seeing malign Russian influence,” she said. “We really need to engage much deeper and much heavier in pushing back against Putin.”
