Russia-Ukraine crisis: Germany halts major pipeline with Russia

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the completion date for Nord Stream 2.

Kiev and Lviv, Ukraine
CNN
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Western leaders announced a raft of sanctions on Moscow after Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the troops to enter Separatist-held parts of eastern UkraineA move described by the United States as the beginning of the Russian invasion of the country.

President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday that the United States will impose sanctions on Russian and oligarchic financial institutions. Earlier today, Germany said it had stopped ratifying $11 billion 750 mile pipeline Which connects Russia directly with Germany.

The Nord Stream 2 The project was completed in September but has yet to receive the final green light from German regulators.

Russia sharply escalated its military campaign against Ukraine on Monday night, recognizing two pro-Russian breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine before ordering troops into the territory.

Moscow has long maintained that it has no soldiers on the ground in eastern Ukraine.

But NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday that Russia has had forces inside the two regions – known as the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) – since they declared themselves in 2014.

Stoltenberg criticized the troop movement as “a further invasion of a country that has already been conquered”.

Putin has yet to set a timetable for troops to move into the breakaway regions, but in a speech on Tuesday afternoon, Biden described the events now unfolding in Ukraine as “the beginning of a Russian invasion.”

“This is a flagrant violation of international law and requires a firm response from the international community,” Biden said, while unveiling a raft of new sanctions.

Biden’s speech was followed by an announcement that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken had canceled Planned meeting With Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Geneva this week.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a national address on Tuesday, said he is still practicing diplomacy as a way out of the crisis. He said reservists would be called up for military training, but there would be no general mobilization of the armed forces.

“We desire peace and quiet, but if we remain calm today, we will disappear tomorrow,” Zelensky said.

The Ukrainian president also referred to Putin’s announcement that the Minsk Accords – designed to end the fighting in eastern Ukraine – were no longer valid, saying that Ukraine remained committed to seeking its sovereignty and integrity.

Putin, who steadily mobilized about 150,000 soldiers Individuals near Ukraine’s border appeared to question the sovereignty of Russia’s neighbor in an angry speech on Monday.

“Ukraine did not have a state tradition of its own,” he said, apparently referring to the questioning of the country’s right to exist as an independent state, referring to its eastern region as “ancient Russian lands.”

On Tuesday, the European Union imposed sanctions on 351 Russian lawmakers who voted to recognize the breakaway regions, and the United Kingdom announced imposing sanctions on five Russian banks and three Russian oligarchs.

Other countries, including Australia and Japan, have pledged to work with The international community on sanctions.

The Baltic states – who have long feared a Russian blockade – watched Monday’s events with concern.

“Putin has just put (Franz) Kafka and (George) Orwell to shame: no limits to the imagination of a dictator, no limits too low, no lies too blatant, no red lines too red to cross,” Prime Minister of Lithuania, Ingridda Simonetti, wrote on Twitter.

“What we witnessed tonight may seem surreal to a democratic world. But the way we respond will define us for generations to come,” she said.

Amid the uproar of countries condemning the planned Russian incursion, some countries have shied away from criticizing Moscow.

During an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Monday evening, India called for “restraint on all sides”, stopping short of criticizing Russia.

China’s envoy to the United Nations on Monday called for All parties must exercise restraint He avoided “inflaming tensions” in Ukraine, but stopped short of condemning the Kremlin’s recognition of the independence of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the LPR. China’s Foreign Ministry evaded more than a dozen questions about Ukraine in a briefing on Tuesday.

However, Kenya’s envoy to the United Nations, made a scathing statement about Putin’s imperial ambitions in Ukraine. We believe that all countries that were formed from empires collapsed or declined, and many peoples yearn to integrate with the peoples of neighboring countries. This is normal and understandable. After all, who wouldn’t want to join their brethren and partner with them? Martin Kimani said on Monday, According to his recitation.

However, Kenya rejects such a yearning to be pursued by force. We must complete our recovery from the embers of dead empires in a way that does not return us to new forms of domination and oppression, he said, adding that Kenya refuses to “expansion on any grounds, including race, ethnicity, religion or culture factors.”

For nearly eight years, the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk witnessed low-intensity conflict between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces, resulting in more than 14,000 deaths.

Moscow also distributed hundreds of Thousands of Russian passports For people in Donbass in recent years. Western officials and observers have accused Putin of trying to establish facts on the ground by naturalizing Ukrainians as Russian citizens.

Kiev and the West maintain that the region is part of Ukrainian territory, although the Ukrainian government maintains that the two regions have, in fact, been under Russian occupation since 2014, when the conflict began in eastern Ukraine.