MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Thursday rejected US President Donald Trump's description of Germany as a "captive" of Russia due to its energy reliance, saying his statement was part of a US campaign to bully Europe into buying American energy supplies.
Trump told Germany at a Nato summit in Brussels on Wednesday that it was wrong to support an $11-billion Baltic Sea pipeline to import even more Russian gas while being slow to meet Nato targets for defence spending.
Trump´s comments came ahead of his summit on Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, though the Kremlin said they were unlikely to have an impact on what was always going to be a difficult meeting due to the number of disagreements between the two countries.
Russia is keen to press ahead with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline since it has the potential to double its gas exports under the Baltic Sea to Germany, bypassing traditional routes through Ukraine with which it has poor relations.
However Washington opposes the project, and a spokesman for the US State Department told Reuters on Wednesday that Western firms invested in the pipeline were at risk of sanctions. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Trump's statement marked an escalation of a US campaign to talk down Russian gas supplies to Europe in an attempt to push the US energy sector instead. "As for Germany's dependence (on Russia) as a major gas buyer we cannot agree with this premise," Peskov told reporters on a conference call.
But he said that “very difficult hours and days” lay ahead for Fico
Singh and co-author Stephen Schwab examined 1.5m doctor-patient encounters in US military health service´s records
Chinese support for Russia´s defence industry “not only threatens Ukrainian security, it threatens European...
The letter asks the European Union´s executive arm to “propose new ways and solutions to prevent irregular...
Gendarme was killed on Thursday, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told AFP, bringing to two number of police...
“I think the results two weeks ago show that green policies are popular,” he said