German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, the $11 billion, 750-mile pipeline that is viewed as an economic threat by Poland, the Baltics and especially Ukraine because it will be capable of doubling, to 110 billion cubic meters annually, the existing capacity to transport Russian gas in a way that bypasses Ukraine’s land-based pipelines.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was present while Merkel delivered her speech at the Munich Security Conference on Feb. 16, after which Ukrainian member of parliament Svitlana Zalishchuk asked Merkel why she doesn’t see the Kremlin’s motivations for Nord Stream 2 pipeline as an economic threat analogous to the military threat posed by the “little green men” — the Russian military forces who invaded and took over Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula in 2014.