Democrat President Joe Biden’s administration reportedly is strong-arming Ukraine to stay silent about a deal that it is expected to announce with Germany on Wednesday that will allow Russia to complete its highly controversial Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Europe.
“The Biden administration will set aside Washington’s longstanding opposition to the pipeline, Nord Stream 2, in a reversal of U.S. policy, ending years of speculation over the fate of the project, which has come to dominate European energy-sector forecasts,” The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday afternoon. “Germany under the agreement will agree to assist Ukraine in energy-related projects and diplomacy.”
Later in the evening, a separate report indicated that the Biden administration is pushing Ukraine to stay silent about “its vociferous opposition” to the deal.
Politico reported:
The U.S. officials have indicated that going public with opposition to the forthcoming agreement could damage the Washington-Kyiv bilateral relationship, those sources said. The officials have also urged the Ukrainians not to discuss the U.S. and Germany’s potential plans with Congress. A senior administration official disputed this reporting, noting that the situation is more nuanced than that, but declined to share further details on U.S. officials’ talks with their Ukrainian counterparts. …
The administration’s position is at odds with much of Congress and with the Ukrainian government and other Eastern European allies, who have long held that U.S. intervention can still block completion of the pipeline, which is nearly completed.
The report noted that a source close to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Ukraine believes that Biden could stop the pipeline if he really had the will to stand up to Russia.
“It’s unbalanced and unfair that Russia gets a huge reward and Ukraine is flogged over criticism,” Alina Polyakova, president and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis, told Politico, noting that “it’s 100 percent true that if Trump did this” there would be a major meltdown by the media and U.S. politicians.
Rebeccah Heinrichs, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, noted on social media that Biden bowing to Putin undermined his “democracy over autocracy” rhetoric.
So how exactly does telling Ukraine to keep quiet to Congress about its vehement opposition to the Russian energy pipeline fit into Biden’s “democracy over autocracy” schtick
— Rebeccah Heinrichs (@RLHeinrichs) July 20, 2021
“Biden has framed his foreign policy as democracy versus autocracy. It’s pretty rich,” Heinrichs told The Daily Wire in a statement. “He lumped Poland- Poland!- in with authoritarian governments and he waved sanctions on Nord Stream 2 which helps one of the most brazen and aggressive autocracies, Russia, that threaten representative governments.”
“Furthermore our own Congress opposed waiving sanctions, and so did Ukraine, which the Biden administration reportedly instructed to stop criticizing the Russian pipeline,” she added. “So much for democratically chosen decisions.”
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) unloaded on Biden over reports that the U.S. was going to announce a deal with Germany to allow the pipeline to be finished.
“If the reports and details of a deal are accurate, this will be a generational geopolitical win for Putin and a catastrophe for the United States and our allies,” Cruz said. “President Biden is defying U.S. law and has utterly surrendered to Putin. Decades from now, Russian dictators will still be reaping billions from Biden’s gift, and Europe will still be subject to Russian energy blackmail.”
“We always knew Biden was in bed with Putin, now they’re spooning,” Cruz added.