German ministers have reiterated EU warnings that Russia would face harsher sanctions in the event of military aggression against Ukraine, which they said could also prompt Berlin to rethink its cooperation with Moscow on the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline.
The renewed warnings come as Kyiv and its Western backers accuse Russia of massing about 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine as a possible prelude to an invasion as early as next month.
The European Union has imposed several rounds of sanctions on Russia over its seizure and illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in March 2014, and over Moscow’s backing of separatists in eastern Ukraine in an ongoing conflict that has killed more than 13,200 people since April 2014.
The bloc has urged Russia to de-escalate and engage in renewed diplomacy over conflict, threatening strong new sanctions in coordination with Britain and the United States if there were any attack.
Russia denies it has plans to launch an offensive and has issued a series of demands about Ukraine’s potential membership in NATO and the alliance’s activities near its western border.
In an interview published on December 19 as she visited German soldiers deployed in Lithuania, German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht said Russia cannot “dictate” to NATO on regional security.
Those responsible for any Russian aggression against Ukraine must face “personal consequences,” Lambrecht also told the German weekly Bild am Sonntag.
“We have to exhaust all the diplomatic and economic sanction possibilities. And all further steps should be agreed with our allies.”
Following Russia’s seizure of Crimea, NATO has strengthened the protection of its eastern flank, deploying joint combat units in the three Baltic states and in Poland as part of an “enhanced forward presence.”
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