Zelenskyy heading to US to push pipeline sanctions

Ukraine's leader is travelling to the United States in hopes of bolstering security ties with Washington and persuading the Biden administration to ramp up sanctions against a new Russian gas pipeline that bypasses his country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has deplored Washington's failure to block the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to Germany as a grave political error, is expected to again raise the issue during his talks Wednesday with U.S. President Joe Biden.

Zelenskyy has described the new pipeline as a powerful geopolitical weapon for Russia, which annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula after the ouster of the country's former Kremlin-friendly president in 2014 and has thrown its weight behind a separatist insurgency in the country's east.

Washington has strongly opposed the construction of Nord Stream 2, but the Biden administration has opted not to punish the German company overseeing the project while announcing the new sanctions against Russian companies and ships.

Zelenskyy has warned that Nord Stream 2 would mark a major victory for Moscow and a "personal loss" for Biden.

The undiplomatic comments reflected Ukrainian fears that the new pipeline would deprive it of $3 billion in annual transit fees for pumping the Russian gas to Europe, erode its strategic importance and make it more vulnerable to the Kremlin pressure.

Yuriy Vitrenko, the head of Ukraine's state-controlled Naftogaz company, told The Associated Press that Ukraine would urge the U.S. to slap Nord Stream 2 with tougher sanctions.

"We continue underlining that Nord Stream 2 is not a matter of some kind of compensations for Ukraine," Vitrenko said.

"It's a security threat for Ukraine, because if there is no physical transit of gas through Ukraine, it increases a  chance of a full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine, and it's not in the interests of Ukraine, and it's not in the interests of Europe, not in the interest of the U.S. as well. That's why we want our U.S. partners to look at Nord Stream 2 as the security threat to Ukraine and to the world."

Ukraine has urged the U.S. and Germany to help pressure Moscow to prolong the current contract for transit of the Russian gas via Ukraine that expires in 2024.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has held the door open for an extension, but noted that it would hinge on the European demand for Russian gas.

Ukrainian officials have argued that a U.S.-German agreement that offered compensation for Ukraine wasn't enough.

The Biden-Zelenskyy meeting, which was initially set for Tuesday, was pushed back one day due to the developments in Afghanistan.

Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba voiced hope that the talks between Biden and Zelenskyy will help "bring the strategic partnership between Ukraine and the United States to the next level."

He emphasized that Ukraine's push for a stronger U.S. security assistance will be central to the talks.

A 2015 peace deal brokered by France and Germany helped end large-scale battles in eastern Ukraine, but regular skirmishes have continued along the tense line of contact and political settlement efforts have stalled.

More than 14,000 have been killed in the fighting since 2014.

Earlier this year, increasing cease-fire violations in the east and a major Russian troop build-up near Ukraine fuelled Kyiv and Western fears of renewed hostilities.

The next month's massive Russia-Belarus war games in western Russia, which are set to involve 200,000 troops, will likely trigger new concerns.

Amid the tug-of-war with Moscow, Ukraine has pushed strongly for joining NATO.

"We continue to insist on the importance of opening NATO doors as wide as possible for Ukraine," Kuleba told the AP.

Observers are sceptical, however, about Ukraine's ability to secure a specific roadmap for membership amid the spiralling conflict in the east and the continuing tensions with Russia.

"The U.S. understands that its European partners are against granting Ukraine a membership action plan because they fear a conflict with Russia," said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Penta Centre think-tank.

"The U.S. wants to strengthen its partnership with Europe and Germany in particular, so it has to take the position of its European partners into account."

Fesenko noted that Zelenskyy's visit to Washington isn't expected to bring any major results.

"There will be no sensations or breakthroughs, but putting military cooperation with the U.S. on a systemic legal basis will be certainly a big result," Fesenko said.

IMAGE: AP