Russia says U.S. Nord Stream sanctions are attack on Europe's energy transition

Russia called on Europe on Thursday to give full support to its Nord Stream gas pipeline, saying the United States would undermine Europe's transition to greener energy if its sanctions delayed the project. "We are not very happy with sanctions on Nord Stream-2 because we believe those are sanctions on Europe's transition to a more ecologically safe energy market", the head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev, told the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"We expect to grow gas exports by 34% in the next 20 years ... We built a great infrastructure to supply gas to Asia which definitely needs it. And so we are helping the Asian transition to cleaner energy through gas and frankly through our pipelines to Europe including Nord Stream-2 we are helping Europe to also transition to cleaner energy," he said. Russia was forced to postpone completion of Nord Stream 2 until next year after the United States imposed sanctions on the project to supply gas to Germany.

Germany has criticized the move as meddling with its energy policies. Washington says it believes Europe should cut reliance on Russia gas and buy more gas from the United States instead.