Speaking with unusual bluntness, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said at EU headquarters in Brussels that the launch of Nord Stream 2 depends on whether Russia invades  Ukraine.

Germany has been giving mixed signals on how the country would respond if the Russians were to cross the border into Ukraine, with Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht advocating against linking the launch of Nord Stream 2 with Russian aggression against Ukraine and Chancellor Olaf Scholz contradicted this assertion, saying that penalizing Nord Stream 2 would be part of the "extreme economic cost" Russia would bear if it marched into Ukraine with its forces massed along the common Ukrainian - Russian border.

In addition, the EU and Great Britain are preparing new sanctions against gas projects of the Russian Federation in case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The gas package has been developed together with the US. They aim to put severe limits on financial and technological investments into Russian gas projects.

The EU is Russia's biggest trading partner with some 40% of the trade in goods, and the biggest foreign investor in Russia with 75% of foreign direct investment coming from the bloc, von der Leyen noted.

"These figures tell you that we have a strong leverage and that it would be very painful for Russia" to escalate the aggression against Ukraine, she said, adding she was working very closely with U.S. President Joe Biden on a strategic partnership on energy security.

Asked about whether Russia could be cut off from the SWIFT global payment system if it attacked Ukraine, von der Leyen repeated that nothing was off the table. She refused, however, to go into any detail on an EU sanctions package.