The reply of the Embassy’s press office to media requests for comment on statements by U.S. StateDept Secretary Mike Pompeo made to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress

We would like to remind you that the icon of modern Republicans – Ronald Reagan – also opposed the construction of a Soviet gas pipeline into Germany at the beginning of the 1980s. His administration imposed sanctions against the companies that took part in that project. They justified it the same way – to not let Russia strengthen its influence over the United States’ European partners.
Today, in a sense, it’s as if we have travelled back 35 years. The same rhetoric, the same means. Only now the administration is defending that pipeline because it runs through Ukraine. By attacking the Nord Stream 2 Washington imposes its own uncompetitive liquefied natural gas on Europe. Geopolitics is again blatantly interfering in economics, discrediting slogans on diversifying deliveries.
Ronald Reagan had enough wisdom to overturn his sanctions after a few years because of their utter pointlessness. We hope that the current administration will draw its conclusions from history more quickly.