U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut said Monday that he wants to see more money invested in building energy pipeline connections in the Balkan Peninsula to reduce or eliminate the region’s dependence on energy from Russia.
“We have the opportunity right now to work with our European partners and others on Russia’s periphery to permanently cut off Russia’s energy flows to neighbors,” Murphy said. “That makes the world more stable,” he said. “It gives Russia less opportunity to try to punish its neighbors for supporting Ukraine.”
Polish and Bulgarian leaders accused Moscow last week of leveraging natural gas to blackmail their countries after Russia’s state-controlled energy company stopped supplying them with gas.
The gas cutoff to Poland and Bulgaria came after Russian President Vladimir Putin said that “unfriendly” countries would need to start paying for gas in rubles, Russia’s currency, which Bulgaria and Poland have refused.
On Monday, Murphy spoke to a Washington, D.C.-based think tank alongside Republican Sen. Thom Tillis. The pair recently traveled overseas to meet with political leaders in the Balkan Peninsula to discuss the ongoing war in Ukraine.
“When we were in Serbia, we heard about [an] interconnection to Bulgaria that’s about $100 million,” Murphy said. “That would give a country like Serbia the opportunity to potentially be gas-independent of Russia. Think about the potential to do that throughout the region.”
President Joe Biden is asking Congress to approve $33 billion to strengthen Ukraine in its fight against Russia. The request signals a long-haul American commitment to Ukraine as Moscow’s invasion – and the international tensions it inflamed – shows no signs of receding.
The package includes about $20 billion in defense spending for Ukraine and its U.S. allies in the region, and $8.5 billion to keep Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s government providing services and paying salaries. There’s $3 billion in global food and humanitarian programs, including money to help Ukrainian refugees who’ve fled to the U.S., and to fund American farmers to grow wheat and other crops to replace the vast amounts of food Ukraine produces.
Administration officials estimated the package would last five months. It is more than twice the size of an initial $13.6 billion aid measure Congress enacted early last month, which is now almost drained. With the bloody war dragging into its third month, the measure was designed to signal to Putin that U.S. weaponry and other streams of assistance are not going to dry up.
“The world must and will hold Russia accountable," Biden said. “And as long as the assaults and atrocities continue, we’re going to continue to supply military assistance.”
Murphy said the Biden administration has “done a remarkable job in delivering a significant cost to Russia” for its invasion of Ukraine.
But he said attention must also be paid to building up energy infrastructure and energy independence in the region near the current conflict zone.
Murphy said the $100 million price tag floated for the energy pipeline project in Serbia would be a “drop in the bucket” compared to Biden’s overall aid package.
“The United States needs to think about looking at creative ways to help finance those kind[s] of projects as well, at the same time that we’re standing up the Ukrainian’s military capacity,” Murphy said.
This story contains information from the Associated Press.
