Ukraine-Russia: Germany suspends North Stream 2 gas pipeline – The Peninsula Qatar

Ukraine-Russia: Germany suspends North Stream 2 gas pipeline – The Peninsula Qatar

Berlin: Germany has taken steps to halt the process of certifying the North Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Tuesday, as the West started taking punitive measures against Moscow over the Ukraine crisis.

Scholz said his government made the decision in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin's recognition of the independence of two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine that he said marked a "serious break of international law.”

"Now it's up to the international community to react to this one-sided, incomprehensible and unjustified action by the Russian president,” he told reporters in Berlin, adding that it was necessary to "send a clear signal to Moscow that such actions won't remain without consequences.”

The decision is a significant move for the German government, which had long resisted pulling the plug on the project despite pressure from the United States and some European countries to do so. Washington has for years argued that building another pipeline bringing natural gas from Russia to Germany increases Europe’s reliance on Russian energy supplies.

"The situation now is fundamentally different," Scholz said, explaining that the government had decided to withdraw a report on the impact that the pipeline - which hasn’t begun operating yet - would