spokesman for the state department says russia s nord stream 2 pipeline project will not move forward if moscow invades ukraine. that s a red line there. this comes as one russian official is expressing disappointment over the u.s. refusal to guarantee it will not further expand nato that region. meanwhile, there is growing pushback against russian leadership here in the u.s. with all that, state department correspondent benjamin hall has the latest live from the state department. good evening, benjamin. good evening, bret. certainly that s far more definitive than we have heard so far about nord stream 2 ned price saying that if russia invades ukraine that will not go ahead. and we don t know if it has to do with the discussions that germany have been involved in. but certainly a big move. particularly at a time when the administration is trying to also focus on the diplomatic part. as russia continues its apparent march to war and as weapons continue to arrive in ukraine, the u.s.
what s your sense of this? do you think that congress will get something done? well, i think that the division itself is an unfortunate thing to have happen in the middle of a crisis. that plan being a nonbinding resolution. those are nice to have, i wrote a few of those when i worked in the senate, during the first gulf war, and they didn t stop the first gulf war, and so i think the very fact that there s division and argument within the senate is probably something that s encouraging to putin. but i think one issue that is sincere, and a real question, is do you do this, and then make the russians feel like they really don t have very much to lose, by going ahead anyway, because of the way you timed this, or do you wait and try and kind of fine tune or calibrate when you can drop these sanctions to interpose them just at the last minute to see if you can get him to reconsider what
ukrainians to wonder if they re the ones being sanctioned in all of this, if they re the ones paying the highest price, at least the you ukrainians that i have been speaking to. now it is expected to be a key topic of conversation today between ukrainian president, and german chancellor schultz expected in kooefb for that meeting and germany has come under scathing criticism in ukraine for its refusal to provide lethal aid to ukraine as well as its refusal to outright cancel the nord stream 2 pipeline project, labelled a geo plim weapon here in kyiv, seen as giving outside influence to the kremlin. all of that expected to be the topic of a press conference here in kyiv later today, jonathan. u.s. officials certainly signalled that a visit from president biden, particularly any time soon, not on the table. and the timetable seems to be perhaps accelerated. the u.s. officials for a long time thought that putin wouldn t
the aisle are acknowledging it is now unlikely they will be able to strike a deal on russian sanctions before a possible invasion of ukraine. there are two major sticking points of the timing of when the sanctions should be imposed and how to address the nord stream 2 pipeline project which will send natural gas from russia to germany. both sides continue to talk but senators are working on a plan b. they have begun drafting a nonbinding resolution warning of severe consequences if putin launches an attack. joins you now, national security expert and contributing writer at the atlantic, tom nichols. let s start with the breaking news this morning. reports from the russian defense ministry that they have started to pull back some, some troops from the ukrainian border, saying that their military exercises are complete. we absolute of course take this with significant skepticism, the kremlin is not always to be trusted, on things like this, and certainly there are lots of other troops
to make sure he heard the same thing as president macron as well. that the u.s. needed to see de-escalation and there would be severe consequences if there was no de-escalation. the big leverage the germans hold in their hands is the nord stream pipeline and the germans have said they believe they should do this. i asked whether or not he had done that in the talks with ent putin. did you make it clearvaon ofe nord stream 2 pipeline project would most probably be dead and would be dead according to the americans, and do you think any head way was made today to make sure that war will be averted? we have a very clear strategy, and this is first saying that if there would be a military aggression against