An additional natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany – 98 percent complete – will open soon.

The route will mean struggling Ukraine, essentially in a state of war with Moscow, will have even less control over Russian gas to Europe via old Soviet-era natural gas pipelines through its territory.

Kyiv has made billions off of the business. The country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has cried foul over the $11 billion route, calling it a sell-out to the Kremlin leader, though his rhetoric has calmed of late.

MERKEL CALLS PUTIN

German Chancellor Merkel last week phoned Kremlin leader Putin, comforting him the “Nord-Stream 2” pipeline is a go.

Merkel, leaving power soon, did warn Putin not to use gas supplies as a political weapon, an unenforceable gesture.

Some portrayed the $11 billion pipeline as a “U.S.-German deal” with the Kremlin. But in fact, Germany advocated the route as to increase Russian-German interdependence as reducing tensions.

Merkel did travel to Washington on the eve of the “announcement” to meet with Biden. The two leaders agreed to provide Kyiv with aid to help replace its natural gas transit fee losses.

But Biden’s opposition to the project – Donald Trump also opposed it as possible leverage over Europe – he said there was no way to prevent it in the future.

Despite flashy headlines about a “Biden-Merkel agreement” to let the gas flow, Washington has no real control. This is a German-Russian agreement.

Nonetheless, some figures said they wanted more from the U.S.

“America could just send some naval vessels into the area” (the Baltic Sea) to disrupt the pipeline, said one former prominent diplomat from an ex-Soviet country.

“The project is against U.S. national interests,” the diplomat said, without mentioning specifics. The U.S. is a major supplier of liquified natural gas (LNG), which it has promoted as a substitute to Russian natural gas, but it costs roughly double.

The project is financed by Russia’s giant Gazprom, the majority partner, and several EU based companies, who hold a minority.

Nord-Stream 2 doubles Russian gas deliveries to Germany and thus several European countries.

Now some of the same countries feign worry over the political implications of a project they themselves supported.

The pipeline complements the existing “Nord-1” natural gas pipeline running right along with it – the same route – which not only Germany – but Denmark, Sweden, and some other European countries supported.

Joining this crowd of sceptics are lesser countries like the Czech Republic – who can eat the gas via existing connector pipelines.

UKRAINE’S LOSS

The leadership in Kyiv dreamed Biden, by some miracle, could snap his fingers and halt the project. Even if he could do so, Biden hardly wants to risk ties with Berlin.

“While we remain opposed to the pipeline, we reached the judgment that sanctions would not stop its construction and risked undermining a critical alliance with Germany, as well as with the EU and other European allies,” a senior State Department official last week.

Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula in 2014 following the overthrow of the pro-Moscow president, Victor Yanukovich, and backing a rebellion in the eastern Donbas region which has killed 14,000.

The U.S.-German agreement also promised to engage with Moscow on extending a Russian-Ukrainian natural gas transit agreement through Ukraine’s existing network, due to expire in 2024, for an additional 10 years.

Kyiv was immediately backed by EU member Poland, whose right-wing, the authoritarian-leaning government is an outcast among most other EU countries.

Due to a bitter history with Russia, Warsaw has a natural inclination to oppose anything related to Moscow.

KYIV RELATIVELY MUTED

Ukraine’s Zelensky, the first term comedian, turned President, at first was furious over the project, already many years in the making.

He has since piped down in advance of an August 30 visit to Washington and the White House, something of a conciliation. One observer noted that the visit would occur during a political “dead period” and when Congress is not in session.

But Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba, meeting with his Polish counterpart, declared the additional route a danger last week.

He and his Polish counterpart said the proposals “cannot be considered sufficient to limit the threats created by Nord Stream 2 effectively…Ukraine and Poland will work together with their allies and partners to oppose Nord Stream 2 until solutions are developed to address the security crisis…”

Kuleba later told reporters that the assurances contained in the deal were too weak.

“There is a fundamental problem… it is still unclear to us whether Russia is ready to fulfil its obligations and its part properly when it comes to the energy security of Ukraine and the preservation of Ukraine’s role as a transit state,” Kuleba said.

Some Ukrainian leading figures went further.

Yuri Vitrenko, head of state-run gas and oil company Naftogaz, spoke darkly of “Budapest Memorandum 2” – a reference to a 1994 deal under which Ukraine gave up its share of the Soviet nuclear arsenal in exchange for U.S. assurances that its borders were inviolable.

That all became moot in 2014, when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula and used proxies to foment a rebellion in the eastern Donbas – 14,000 people have since died in seven years of clashes.

“I don’t understand how Germany can guarantee gas transit through Ukraine if it is not producing or shipping gas from Russian territory,” Vitrenko told the Voice of America. “Ukraine already relied upon the Budapest Memorandum as a security guarantee. Budapest Memorandum 2 holds no attraction for us.”

Russia is in something of a hurry to push through the pipeline’s completion ahead of the German federal elections in October. Long opposed to Nord Stream 2, the environmentalist Green Party could perform well enough to enter a government coalition.

“At a time when Putin is putting massive rhetorical and military pressure on Ukraine and once again questioning the country’s sovereignty, Washington and Berlin are sending the wrong signals to Moscow,” said Oliver Krischer, the Vice-Chairman of the party’s parliamentary group, and Manuel Sarrazin, the spokesman for Eastern European policy.

RUSSIAN THREATS

Recent Russian behaviour offers little comfort for Kyiv.

In April, Moscow massed more than 100,000 troops in Crimea and on Ukraine’s eastern borders for what it said were necessary exercises to counter “aggressive” moves by NATO. Many have remained close by despite Russian assurances that they were sent back to barracks.

Putin has rebuffed Zelensky’s call for one-on-one talks on the rebellion in the Eastern Donbas, saying Moscow has nothing to do with what it calls Ukraine’s “civil war” and telling Zelensky to speak directly to the separatists running two unrecognised statelets in the region.

While Russia gave a guarded welcome to the U.S.-German deal, saying it disagreed with some of the language used and denying it had ever used energy as a “geopolitical weapon”.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was a “responsible guarantor of energy security” and was ready to discuss extending the gas transit deal with Ukraine.

In the United States, Biden faced opposition from mainly Republican lawmakers.

Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said that he had no doubt Russia “will use the Nord Stream 2 pipeline as a weapon of coercion against Ukraine and transatlantic energy security as soon as it is operational.

Promises to invest in future Ukrainian energy projects and ambiguous threats of consequences won’t change that reality.”

In the Senate, John Barrasso, a Wyoming Republican, said the pipeline put a “stranglehold” on Europe. “Protecting this Russian trap is not in our national security interest.”

Other Ukrainian commentators were remarkably sanguine about the deal and Ukraine’s prospects to counter its effects, saying the country had to learn to deal with global realities.

“The process of slowing construction of Nord Stream 2 became possible only because it threatened U.S. interests. U.S. companies wanted to supply gas to Europe, and Trump promoted their interests…That is normal. For Biden, Transatlantic unity with Germany is more important than supplying gas to Europe,” columnist Serhiy Fursa wrote on the Ukrainian website nv.ua

“What do the Germans see? They see that Russian gas was previously shipped by pipeline and will continue to be shipped by pipeline. As demand is high, more will flow. Still, more as Germany abandons coal and nuclear power.”

“The world is cynical and pragmatic, and it is time we grew up.”