The US sanctions against Nord Stream 2 aim to make the project’s implementation as difficult as possible and can do so, Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the Russian president, told reporters on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Reuters, citing senior sources in President Donald Trump’s administration, announced that the US administration plans to impose a new package of sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 project. In response to the question of whether the American side has real mechanisms capable of stopping the project, Peskov said: “Of course, the restrictions that the Americans have already accepted, that they have planned in the draft defense budget, are aimed at complicating the project implementation as much as possible, a project Europe very much needs, in terms of European energy security.
Talking about whether the Trump administration will have time to stop the project, Peskov said: “We are not inclined to read coffee grounds here.” “We have our issues to work out, and we’re working on them,” he said.
The Nord Stream 2 project contemplates the construction of two pipeline strings with 55 bln cubic meters per year from the coast of Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany. To date, 93% of Nord Stream 2 has been finished. The construction was suspended at the end of 2019 when the Swiss pipe-laying company Allseas stopped work due to US sanctions.
