The West showed Tuesday it was ready to target Russia’s huge energy industry — even at the risk of hurting itself — after Moscow ordered troops into parts of eastern Ukraine.

Germany said it was halting certification of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline following Moscow’s actions in eastern Ukraine on Monday.

“With regard to the latest developments, we need to reassess the situation also with regard to Nord Stream 2. It sounds very technocratic but it is the necessary administrative step in order to stop certification of the pipeline,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in Berlin.

The 750-mile pipeline was completed in September but has not yet received final certification from German regulators. Without that, natural gas cannot flow through the Baltic Sea pipeline from Russia to Germany.

The United States, the United Kingdom, Ukraine and several EU countries have opposed the pipeline since it was announced in 2015, warning the project would increase Moscow’s influence in Europe.
Nord Stream 2 could deliver 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

That’s more than 50% of Germany’s annual consumption and could be worth as much as $15 billion to Gazprom, the Russian state owned company that controls the pipeline.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered troops into separatist-held parts of eastern Ukraine in what the Kremlin called a “peacekeeping” mission, just hours after he signed decrees recognizing the independence of the Moscow-backed regions.

It is unclear if Russian troop movements marked the beginning of an invasion of Ukraine that Western leaders have warned about for weeks. But multiple US and Western officials cautioned Monday’s move could serve as the opening salvo of a larger military operation targeting the country.

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council Monday evening that Putin’s recognition of the pro-Moscow regions was an “attempt to create a pretext for a further invasion.”

She said his claim that Russian forces are entering those regions as “peacekeepers” is “nonsense.”

President Joe Biden on Monday issued an executive order sanctioning Russia for recognizing two breakaway territories in eastern Ukraine as independent.

“The Russian Federation’s purported recognition of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) or Luhansk People’s Republic (LNR) regions of Ukraine contradicts Russia’s commitments under the Minsk agreements and further threatens the peace, stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Ukraine, and thereby constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” the order stated.

The executive order expands upon previous sanctions issued when Russia invaded Crimea in 2014 and prohibits new U.S. investment in the breakaway regions, imports and exports from the regions, and financial and property transactions as determined by the U.S. Treasury.

Earlier Monday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the U.S. had been prepared for Russia’s move.

Biden’s executive order will “prohibit new investment, trade, and financing by U.S. persons to, from, or in the so-called DNR and LNR regions of Ukraine” as well as “provide authority to impose sanctions on any person determined to operate in those areas of Ukraine,” Psaki said in a statement.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson says Britain is slapping sanctions on five Russian banks and three wealthy individuals over Russia’s latest military moves on Ukraine.

Johnson told lawmakers that sanctions would hit Rossiya Bank, IS Bank, General Bank, Promsvyazbank and the Black Sea Bank.

He said three Russian oligarchs with interests in energy and infrastructure — Gennady Timchenko, Boris Rotenberg and Igor Rotenberg — will have their assets frozen and be banned from traveling to the U.K.

All three have already been sanctioned by the United States.

Johnson accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of “establishing the pretext for a full-scale offensive” against Ukraine and said “further powerful sanctions” would follow if that happened.

“This the first tranche, the first barrage of what we are prepared to do and we hold further sanctions at readiness to be deployed,” Johnson told British lawmakers.

He also said that Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers have been spotted in the separatist Ukrainian regions recognized as independent by Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said that amounts to “a renewed invasion” of Ukraine.

China’s envoy to the United Nations on Monday called for “all parties” to exercise restraint and avoid “fueling tensions” in Ukraine, but stopped short of condemning the Kremlin’s recognition of independence for two pro-Moscow regions in the east of the country.

Beijing is navigating a complex position as the crisis in Ukraine intensifies, attempting to balance deepening ties with Moscow with its practiced foreign policy of staunchly defending state sovereignty.

In a brief statement at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council Monday night, China’s UN Ambassador Zhang Jun said Beijing welcomed and encouraged every effort for a diplomatic solution, adding that all concerns should be treated on the “basis of equality.”

“The current situation in Ukraine is the result of many complex factors. China always makes its own position according to the merits of the matter itself. We believe that all countries should solve international disputes by peaceful means in line with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter,” Zhang said.

The Supreme Court said on Tuesday that it will not take up former President Donald Trump’s case challenging the disclosure of his White House documents to the House January 6 investigation, a formal conclusion to his unsuccessful bid to keep those records secret.

The court had previously rejected Trump’s emergency request to block the National Archives from turning over the materials while the court considered whether to take up the case. The documents Trump was trying to block in court are already in the hands of the House Select Committee investigating January 6.

Tuesday’s order — which included no further explanation of why the court was not taking up the case — means that the lower court decisions approving the release of the documents will stand.

The three white men convicted of chasing down and murdering a young Black man, Ahmaud Arbery, as he was out jogging in their suburban Georgia community, were found guilty on Tuesday of committing federal hate crimes and other offenses in the 2020 killing.

A predominantly white jury deliberated for about four hours over two days before returning the verdict against Travis McMichael, 36, his father, former police officer Gregory McMichael, 66, and a neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, 52, in U.S. District Court in Brunswick, Georgia.

“Ahmaud will continue to rest in peace but he will now begin to rest in power,” Wanda Cooper-Jones, Ahmaud’s mother, said outside the courthouse after the verdict was read.

All three men were found guilty of violating Arbery’s civil rights by attacking him because of his race, and of attempted kidnapping, capping the latest high-profile trial to probe issues of vigilantism and racial violence in America.