WASHINGTON, February 7. /TASS/. Germany and its allies are ready to take "all necessary steps" if Russia "invades" Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in an interview published by the Washington Post on Sunday, when asked if the German government could halt the process to open the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
"We are ready to take together with our allies all necessary steps," he said. "We have a very clear agreement with the United States government on gas transit and energy sovereignty in Europe."
"We already also agreed that we will support Ukraine," Scholz went on to say. "Also, it is absolutely clear that in a situation like this all options are on the table."
"I will not get into any specifics, but our answer will be united and decisive," the chancellor said.
"We are working very hard with our allies in NATO and in the European Union to make clear what we can do in the specific situation," Scholz said. "But we are also clear about the necessary strategic ambiguity."
"This is also critical for giving this strong message that it will be very costly — so they cannot go to a computer and count whether it will be too expensive or not," he said. "It would be too high a price to intervene in Ukraine."
"On the other hand, that 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 it’s also the Normandy format," the chancellor said.
The interview came out ahead of a visit by Scholz to the US where he is set to meet with US President Joe Biden on February 7.
There has been a flurry of statements in the West and Kiev lately that Russia could invade Ukraine. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said they were unsubstantiated escalation and that Russia doesn’t threaten anyone. At the same time, he didn’t rule out provocations to corroborate these Western statements and warned that the use of force to resolve the crisis in southeastern Ukraine will have serious consequences.