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Poland, Ukraine and Baltic states fear the pipeline would increase Europe's dependence on Russian gas and provide the Kremlin with billions of dollars of additional revenue to finance a further military build-up on European Union's borders.However, the biggest threat has been from the US, and German businessmen know it. German politicians are increasingly pressuring Merkel to abandon US-imposed sanctions altogether:
"Like Poland, the United States opposes the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. We see it as undermining Europe's overall energy security and stability," Tillerson said at a joint news conference with the Polish foreign minister in Warsaw.
"Our opposition is driven by our mutual strategic interests," he said.
Sanctions are "a dead horse one should not ride anymore," Ramelow told Der Spiegel as he pointed out that they did not actually contribute anything to the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis. Ukraine's problems cannot be "solved through a symbolic policy at the expense of our industries," he said. [...]
In December 2017, a study published by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy showed that Germany is de facto Europe's biggest loser from the EU penalties introduced against Russia. German exports to Russia dropped nearly 40 percent with the country losing €618 million ($768 million) each month because of the sanctions.

Comment: The horror of child trafficking is a disturbing reflection of the ills of our world: