The Biden administration has stated that it has formally ended its opposition to Russia completing the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The pipeline, which is more than 90 percent complete, is set to double the capacity of Russian natural gas flows into Germany through the Baltic Sea—bypassing the existing Ukrainian pipeline.
The United States has taken the German side against Kyiv in this dispute. The operation of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline will make Ukrainian infrastructure superfluous, thus allowing the Kremlin to forgo paying Kiev around $2 billion in annual transit fees and heightening security threats for Ukraine, which will lose a potential source of leverage over Moscow.
