Russia Has Been Reminded Not To Invade, German Chancellor: We Support Ukraine, Ready To Take Necessary Steps

JAKARTA - Germany and its allies are ready to take all necessary steps if Russia attacks Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in an interview published by the Washington Post, when asked whether the German government could halt the process to open the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

"We are ready to together with our allies take all necessary steps. We have a very clear agreement with the United States government on gas transit and energy sovereignty in Europe," Chancellor Scholz said, quoting TASS on February 7.

"We have also agreed that we will support Ukraine. Also, it is very clear that in a situation like this all options are on the table. I will not go into specifics, but our answer will be united and decisive," he stressed.

"We are working very hard with our allies in NATO and in the European Union to make it clear what we can do in certain situations. But we are also clear about the strategic ambiguity required."

"It's also important to give a strong message, it will be very expensive, so they can't go to the computer and calculate whether it will be too expensive or not. That would be too high a price to intervene in Ukraine."

"On the other hand, we are working very hard to use all the channels of talks that we have now: talks between the United States and Russia, the NATO-Russia Council, the OSCE and obviously that's also the Normandy format," Scholz said.

The interview comes ahead of Scholz's visit to the United States, where he is due to meet US President Joe Biden on February 7.

To note, there have been a lot of statements in the West and Kyiv lately, that Russia could invade Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was a baseless escalation, stressing Russia was not threatening anyone.

At the same time, he did not rule out provocations to corroborate these Western statements and warned that the use of force to resolve the crisis in southeastern Ukraine would have serious consequences.