Thread by @anders_aslund

What the Biden administration should do on Russia/Ukraine/Nord Stream 2.
1. Follow the Interim National Security Strategy: "Russia remains determined to enhance its global influence and play a disruptive role on the world stage."
whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…

2. Russia as a disruptive (possibly rogue) power does not obey international law as Putin proves all the time & it should not be expected to do so. US officials need to stop hoping for "Russia's good will" (even Blinken hope for that recently).

3. The general conclusion is that if you don't hit Putin hard between the eyes, you will not be taken seriously. In order to become serious in relation to Russia, the Biden administration has no choice but to sanction Nord Stream 2 fully as the Congress has LEGISLATED.

4. The Biden administration's concessions on Nord Stream 2 are incomprehensible. The aim of this project is geopolitical, to tie Germany to Russia & break up the EU & NATO. Such treasonous activities among allies must not be supported or accepted.

5. By effectively supporting Nord Stream 2, the Biden administration goes against its national security strategy, its allies & divides NATO & the EU. This cannot be in the US interest.

6. Some members of this new US administration seem to be unable to distinguish between the pecuniary interests of Putin's two most well-paid agents in Europe, Gerhard Schröder and former Stasi agent Matthias Warnig. They do not represent Germany or the EU or US allies.

7. Schröder's closest aid was German President Steinmeier. Now Schröder serves Putin as chairman of Rosneft (officially $600,000 a year) and chairman of Nord Stream 1 AG & Nord Stream 2 AG, both fully-owned Gazprom subsidiaries with unpublished salaries & bonuses.

8. Schröder & Warnig should be sanctioned by the US as Putin's main agents in Europe, either under Global Magnitsky Act or the Ukraine sanctions. Why can the US sanction evil oligarchs in Finland, Latvia, Slovakia & Bulgaria, but not in Germany? Rethink!

9. The US has laudably sanctioned the Finnish citizens Gennady Timchenko & Boris Rotenberg (Putin cronies March 2014), Latvia's top oligarch Aivars Lembergs (GlobMag December 2019), Slovak Marian Kocner (suspect of journalist murder) & Bulgarian Mafia.
Why no German crooks?

10. Republican senators, primarily Ted Cruz, have put a lot of holds on the appointment of good top Biden nominees in the national security sphere over the sanctioning of Nord Stream 2. The cost to the Biden administration to obey Putin & Schröder is considerable and absurd.

11. Everything is wrong with the US agreement with Germany about NS2: It is over the head of the main victim, Ukraine. I talked to a group of Ukrainian MPs today who cry: Yalta 2! The commercial sense (if any) is to move transit Ukraine's business to Germany, aka exploitation.

12. The only way the Biden administration can come clean in relation to all the parties concerned is to imposed full sanctions on NS2 asap. There is no need for this pipeline; it undermines Western national & energy security; its aims are geopolitical & corrupt. Stop it! @POTUS

13. Remember that the big security issue in August in Europe is whether Putin will follow up his July 12 article with some kind of war on Ukraine.
Are the US & EU (not to mention the German government) awake?
en.kremlin.ru/events/preside…