MOSCOW, June 6. /TASS/. Russia and Nord Stream 2’s operator are ready for problems, which the West could create for the pipeline’s work, Russian Permanent Representative to the European Union Vladimir Chizhov told Rossiya-1 TV channel on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.

"I think that we and the company-operator - this is an international company registered in Switzerland, by the way - are ready for this," Chizhov said, commenting on possible problems during Nord Stream 2’s operation.

On Friday, at the plenary session of the SPIEF, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the pipelaying operation for the first string of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline was successfully completed and the second string would be ready in 1.5-2 months. The head of the Austrian OMV, Rainer Seele, told TASS on the sidelines of the SPIEF that about 50 km of the second string of Nord Stream 2 remained to be laid.

Nord Stream 2 is a project to expand the existing Nord Stream gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany along the bottom of the Baltic Sea, bypassing transit states of Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, and other Eastern European and Baltic countries.