Free Republic

President Biden and his allies raked in campaign cash from a top Russia lobbyist in 2020, just months before his administration’s decision to scrap sanctions on a controversial firm building a Russian oil pipeline to Germany. Richard Burt, a managing partner at McLarty Associates and a former U.S. ambassador to Germany during the Reagan administration, ponied up $4,000 for Joe Biden in October 2020 and dropped another $10,000 in the lefty-aligned political action committee Unite The County in March 2020, FEC records show. In addition to violating Biden’s own campaign pledge not to take lobbyist cash, the money from Burt...

Officials from the White House called on their Ukrainian counterparts to abstain from the scrutiny when it comes to the upcoming deal with Germany that concerns Nord Stream 2. Politico wrote that with a reference to informed sources. The dignitaries hinted that they refused to stop the Nord Stream 2 project, and now they're trying to contain the damage by making a large-scale deal with Germany. According to sources, public statements regarding this upcoming agreement may inflict damage on Kyiv-Washington relations. The US official also urged Ukraine not to discuss potential plans of this deal with the U.S. Congress. Related:...

Joe Biden claimed he could not do anything to stop the Russian-German pipeline Nord Stream 2 from being completed. This comes as Republicans said Biden did a major geopolitical favor for Vladimir Putin by lifting U.S. sanctions on pipeline operators. However, Biden said German Chancellor Angela Merkel would prevent Russia from using Nord Stream 2 to exert political pressure on Ukraine. …

For years, Democrats and their cable news echo chamber conjured up and broadly disseminated the most lurid and patently ludicrous rumors about former President Donald Trump being a corrupted and (literally) compromised agent of Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin. Democratic talking heads ultimately tried in vain to distance themselves from this sordid oeuvre's most far-fetched talking points, such as the infamous "pee video kompromat" from the discredited Steele dossier. But for four years, Democrats' unquenchable obsession with the "Russiagate" hoax pervaded, distorted and sullied our politics. The irony is that Trump, on actual substantive merits, toed a very hawkish line...

A series of unusual leaks on two natural gas pipelines running from Russia under the Baltic Sea to Germany triggered concerns about sabotage Tuesday, overshadowing the inauguration of a long-awaited pipeline that will bring Norwegian gas to Poland to bolster Europe’s energy independence from Moscow. Seismic stations Sweden, Norway and Finland registered two explosions Monday near the leaks. Bjorn Lund, a seismologist with Uppsala University who is part of Sweden’s national seismic network, said the first explosion was recorded in the early hours southeast of the Danish island of Bornholm. The latter and stronger blast that night was northeast of...

Russia has been playing this game for months and now it seems to have reached its inevitable outcome. The gas supply flowing through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline has been completely shut off. Russia claimed this week that it was shutting the gas supply off temporarily in order to do maintenance on the line. Then it claimed it had discovered a problem which prevented it from resuming the supply. No one is being fooled by any of this anymore. Even the German company that built the machines used to pump gas through the pipeline has said Russia’s explanation makes no...

Russia has scrapped a Saturday deadline to resume flows via a major gas supply route to Germany, deepening Europe’s difficulties in securing winter fuel, after saying it had found faults in the Nord Stream 1 pipeline during maintenance.Nord Stream 1, which runs under the Baltic Sea, had been due to resume operating at 0100 GMT on Saturday after a three-day halt for maintenance....European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said earlier the EU should impose a price cap on Russian pipeline gas......Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Moscow would turn off supplies to Europe if Brussels imposed such a cap.

Russia's Gazprom said on Friday that natural gas supplies via the Nord Stream 1 pipeline would remain shut off after the main gas turbine at the Portovaya compressor station near St Petersburg was found to have an engine oil leak during a joint inspection with Siemens Energy, which maintains the turbine. It said the turbine could not operate safely until the leak was repaired, and gave no timeframe for the resumption of gas supplies via the pipeline, which had been due to return to operation early on Saturday after a three-day maintenance break. Gazprom said in its statement on Telegram...

MOSCOW. July 18 (Interfax) - Ukrainians will never accept Canada's decision to return a turbine for the Nord Stream gas pipeline to Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. "I talked today with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. We discussed our cooperation, and I thanked him, thanked Canada for support. But I also pointed out that the Ukrainians would never accept Canada's decision regarding a turbine for Nord Stream, which it decided to transfer to Germany essentially in violation of the sanction regime," Ukrainian media quoted Zelensky as saying in a video address on Sunday evening. Gazprom has officially addressed Siemens...

The closure for 10 days of two pipelines, announced long ago, should in theory have been a technical formality. But in the context of the war in Ukraine and the fight between Russia and the West on energy, nobody can predict what will come.Europe fears that Russia will extend scheduled maintenance to further restrict Europe’s gas supply, disrupting winter storage plans and exacerbating a gas crisis that has prompted emergency measures by governments and painfully high bills for consumers. consumers.

President Joe Biden announced Wednesday he would level sanctions on Russia’s proposed Nord Stream 2 Pipeline, after lifting sanctions on the project put in place by former President Donald Trump. “Today, I have directed my administration to impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG and its corporate officers,” Biden said in a statement detailing his decision.

On Tuesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Hallie Jackson Reports,” Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) stated that the sanctions against Russia announced by President Joe Biden “cannot be the end of it” and called for the sanctioning of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, “so it’s a clear message to Putin, you’re not going to get it online anytime.”

Speaking during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz at the White House Monday afternoon, resident Joe Biden claimed the Nord Stream 2 pipeline from Russia to Europe will be stopped if President Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine. The Biden administration greenlit the pipeline project last year. ... Biden also encouraged Americans to leave Ukraine so they "don't get caught in the crossfire." ... But while Biden doubled down on the ability to keep the pipeline from operating, Scholz wasn't as definitive in supporting that option. ... Before the question and answer portion of their press conference, Biden and...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) pushed for sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline regardless of whether or not Russia invades Ukraine Graham said sanctioning Nord Stream 2 regardless of whether or not Russia invades “would be a great thing to do. It would bolster the case in the eyes of Russia that there will be a price to be paid. … Why would you give Putin a reward when he’s done nothing but be the most destructive force in central Europe? So, the Biden approach is to coddle and reward people...

President Joe Biden threatened Russian President Vladimir Putin with leveling sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline, even after he scrapped them in May. The White House said Biden warned Putin the United States would deploy “strong economic measures” if Russia invaded Ukraine.

The Biden administration is expected to drop the US's years-long opposition to a new natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany as early as today, earning swift backlash from top Republicans. 'This is a terrible mistake, it's a mistake that's opposed by both parties in Congress. It's just another example of the pathetic appeasement of Joe Biden for Vladimir Putin,' Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton said on Fox News Wednesday. On top of 'costing' American jobs, Cotton claims the move empowers Russia and 'badly undercuts our allies and partners in Eastern Europe like Poland and Ukraine, who Joe Biden is now...

As the US and Germany have reportedly reached a deal on the Nord Stream 2 project, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday, citing the obtained draft text of the agreement, that it would threaten sanctions and other measures if Russia tried to use energy as a "weapon" against Ukraine, though it did not specify what actions could provoke the countermeasures....The almost completed Russia-led project intends to transmit natural gas directly from Russia to Germany. As a strong opponent of Nord Stream 2 and a self-proclaimed proponent of European energy independence, Washington has levied repeated rounds of sanctions on firms and individuals involved...

The United States and Germany want to compensate Ukraine for losses after the launch of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, Bloomberg reports citing sources. The agreement, which some officials hope to have ready for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s visit to Washington next month, could see the countries commit to bolstering Ukrainian infrastructure and compensating it for transit fees that will be lost because the pipeline bypasses the country. Germany may also commit to supporting the “Three Seas” plan to boost Eastern European cooperation on energy and transportation. Possible options for a deal were spelled out by several people familiar with...

“Nothing will stop” Nord Stream 2, Russia has said, after new US sanctions on a pipeline that is seeing the EU side with Russia against its transatlantic ally. “Our view remains the same: nothing will stop the finalization of Nord Stream 2 [NS2]. And we leave to Germany and other EU member states to pass judgment on such US measures,” Russia’s ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizhov, told EUobserver on Monday (29 June). The Russian-owned firm building the pipe from Russia to Germany, the Nord Stream 2 consortium in Switzerland, was equally bullish. “Our shareholder and the five financial investors...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced that laying the pipes for the first of two lines of the prospective Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany has now been "successfully completed." Addressing an economic forum in St. Petersburg on June 4, Putin also said that "work on the second line is continuing." While the underwater section still needs to be linked to the section on German territory, Russian energy giant Gazprom "is ready to start filing Nord Stream 2 with gas," he added. Gazprom shares went up 0.6 percent after Putin's comments, reaching 273.80 rubles ($3.74) -- their highest level since...