US targets Putin’s pipelines from Baltic Sea to Balkans Russian President Vladimir Putin has frequently been accused of using energy supplies as a geopolitical weapon. (Mikhail Klimentyev/Russian Presidential Press and Information Office/TASS via REUTERS) The US has begun 2021 by delivering a series of sanctions blows that leave the future of Vladimir Putin’s USD 11 billion Nord Stream 2 pipeline project in grave doubt. The latest American measures appear to have succeeded in forcing insurance, certification, and engineering firms to distance themselves from the geopolitically sensitive energy infrastructure project. Moscow remains publicly defiant and bullish over the prospects of completing the unfinished pipeline, but it seems that Russia’s gas producer Gazprom is under no such illusions. A January 19 Reuters report claims Gazprom acknowledged in a recent Eurobond prospectus that the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project may be suspended or scrapped amid political pressure.