During a speech on the Senate floor early Tuesday, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) slammed President Biden over the current crisis in Ukraine as tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have been amassing near Ukraine’s border in apparent preparation for an invasion.
“Right now, as we speak, hundreds of thousands of Russian troops are amassed on the border of Ukraine, waiting to invade,” Cruz said. “This calamitous foreign policy disaster is Joe Biden’s fault. This is the direct consequence of Joe Biden’s surrender to Vladimir Putin on Nord Stream 2.”
“What is Nord Stream 2? It is a pipeline being constructed from Russia to Germany to carry natural gas,” Cruz explained. “Putin is building Nord Stream 2. Why? To go around Ukraine, because right now, Russian gas goes through Ukraine. Putin didn’t just wake up recently and decide to invade Ukraine. He’s wanted to invade Ukraine for years, he did so in 2014, but he stopped short of full invasion. Why? Because the Ukrainian energy infrastructure was necessary to get the Russian gas to market. Nord Stream 2 is all about building an alternative avenue to get the Russian gas to Europe so then the Russian tanks can ride into Ukraine.”
Cruz explained that European allies had warned against lifting the sanctions on the pipeline because doing so was “increasing dramatically the chances that Russia would invade Ukraine.”
“This invasion that we are facing, the very real prospect of, is Joe Biden’s fault. But you know what? It is also the fault of Senate Democrats,” Cruz continued. “For two years, we had bipartisan agreement to stop Nord Stream 2 and we succeeded. And when there was a Republican president in office, Donald Trump, I and other Republicans were perfectly willing to hold President Trump to account to press him to stand up against Nord Stream 2. And he did. As soon as a Democrat got in the White House, our Democratic colleagues decided that partisan loyalty was more important than national security.”
Cruz added that the Senate “could make a major step today to prevent war in Europe, to prevent Russia from invading Ukraine right now, by doing what Democrats and Republicans had agreed to do—had done together—until Biden’s surrender to Russia.”
“We can do that by passing legislation that I have pending at the desk that would sanction Nord Stream 2, that would stop the project, which would mean Russia would remain dependent on Ukrainian energy infrastructure,” he continued. “And for the same reason Russia didn’t continue to invade in 2014, it would stop the invasion. We can do that right now.”
Later that day, White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan suggested that the U.S. was now willing to use the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to stop Russia from invading Ukraine.
“The fact is that gas is not currently flowing through the Nord Stream 2 pipeline,” he told reporters. “Which means that it is not operating. Which means it’s not leverage for Putin.”
“Indeed, it is leverage for the West because if Vladimir Putin wants to see gas flow through that pipeline, he may not want to take the risk and invade Ukraine,” he added.
