>> reporter: millions of ukrainians were killed as hitler's army overran what was then the ukrainian part of the soviet union, nearly the entire jewish population "therethere w out. but german also has hard economic reasons for going soft on russia. its dependence on russian gas and the nord stream 2 pipeline. while berlin recently claimed the pipeline was purely an economic project, at least now the government says a russian invasion of ukraine would have an impact. >> translator: if there is renewed congress, we have the full bandwidth of measures, including nord stream 2. >> reporter: the u.s. has long urged berlin to use in order stream 2, which is not yet certified for gas transit, as leverage to deter moscow. now the state department says if russia invades, the project is dead.