US President Joe Biden has vowed to shut down a key Russian gas pipeline to Germany if Moscow invades Ukraine.
US President Joe Biden did not give specifics about shutting down the pipeline. Photo: AFP
Speaking after talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Washington, Biden said the US would "bring an end" to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Their talks came as French President Emmanuel Macron met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and expressed hope that war could be avoided.
There are growing Western fears of a Russian invasion, which Moscow denies.
Russia currently has more than 100,000 troops massed on Ukraine's borders.
US officials said on Sunday that Russia has assembled 70 percent of military forces needed for a full-scale invasion.
In recent weeks, Moscow has demanded that the Western military alliance Nato ban Ukraine from ever becoming a member, and that the group cuts its troop numbers in eastern Europe.
Nato has rejected both demands. It has instead suggested talks on other areas, such as limiting nuclear weapons.
The tensions between Russia, Ukraine and the West come nearly eight years after Russia annexed Ukraine's southern Crimea Peninsula and backed a bloody rebellion in the eastern Donbas region.
Moscow accuses the Ukrainian government of failing to implement the Minsk agreement - an international deal sponsored by Germany and France to restore peace to the east, where Russian-backed rebels control swathes of territory and at least 14,000 people have been killed since 2014.
No specifics from Biden
Biden and Scholz held a press conference after their discussions in the US capital on Monday.
When asked about Nord Stream 2, the US president said "if Russia invades... again, then there will be longer Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it."
However he did not give specifics, responding to a question about how he would do this by saying: "I promise you we will be able to do it."
Scholz - on his first trip to Washington since becoming Chancellor and under criticism for his response to the Ukraine crisis - was more ambiguous about the pipeline.
But he did say the US and Germany were "absolutely united" on sanctions against Russia should it invade Ukraine, saying "we will do the same steps and they will be very, very hard to Russia".
The 1225km Nord Stream 2 pipeline took five years to build and cost US$11bn (NZ$16.5bn). The energy project, which would run under the Baltic Sea, is designed to double Russia's gas exports to Germany.
But as yet it has not started operating, as regulators said in November it does not comply with German law and suspended its approval.
Major European businesses have invested heavily in Nord Stream 2. But many groups object to the plan.
Environmentalists question how it will fit in with German efforts to cut emissions and tackle man-made climate change, while politicians at home and abroad fear it could increase Europe's dependence on Russian energy.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously described the pipeline as a "dangerous geopolitical weapon".
Macron says crucial days ahead after Putin summit
French President Emmanuel Macron has said the coming days will be crucial to de-escalating the Ukraine standoff, after a meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin.
Putin hinted that progress had been made during his first Moscow summit with a Western leader since Russian troops massed on Ukraine's borders.
Macron, who spoke with Putin over a five-hour dinner which included reindeer with sweet potatoes and blackberries, told reporters the coming days would be "decisive" and "require intensive discussions which we will pursue together".
The Russian president said that some of Macron's proposals "could form the basis of further joint steps", stating that they were "probably still too early to talk about".
The pair will speak again once the French president has travelled to Kyiv to meet the Ukrainian leadership.
Putin later repeated earlier warnings that should Ukraine join the Western military alliance Nato and attempt to take back Crimea - which Russia annexed eight years ago - by force, Europe could get sucked into a major conflict.
"Do you want France to fight with Russia?" he asked French reporters. "That's what will happen. And there will be no winners."
- BBC