A senior U.S. envoy said on Saturday he had delivered reassurances to Ukraine and Poland on mitigating any threat posed by Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, but that the project was now a “reality”. Amos Hochstein, the State Department’s senior adviser for energy security, told Reuters there was “breathing room” until 2024 to ensure Ukraine kept its status as a gas transit country but urged Kyiv to move towards alternative energy sources. The United States has been Ukraine’s most powerful backer in a standoff with Moscow since Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula in 2014, but Kyiv opposed a U.S.-German deal in July that allowed the […]