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Austria remains against sanctions that would hit Nord Stream 2 or SWIFT in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine

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On Monday, Europe’s foreign ministers gathered in Brussels, and at the top of the agenda was the current crisis which has befallen Ukraine. As of writing, the Putin regime has deployed around 100,000 troops to Russia’s western border with Ukraine. Around 20,000 are positioned near the provinces of Donetsk and Lubansk, where separatists supported by Russia have been engaged in a proxy war since 2014. Forces deployed in the north, meanwhile, offer Vladimir Putin the possibility of marching on the Ukrainian capital Kiev, should he choose to take that option.

A recent American intelligence assessment concluded that “Moscow has drawn up plans for a military offensive involving an estimated 175,000 troops”; Secretary of State Antony Blinken took part in Monday’s conference of foreign ministers. That conversation, Austria’s foreign minister Alexander Schallenberg said Monday, was “a strong signal of the transatlantic bond between the United States and the EU. Our analysis of the threat…