Backlash at Ted Cruz after he tells Fox News that Biden started war in Ukraine

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Texas Senator Ted Cruz assigned baseless blame for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to President Joe Biden on Monday as the Trump-aligned segment of the Republican Party continues to insist that former President Donald Trump, who enjoyed a famously warm relationship with Vladimir Putin, would have prevented the war.

Mr Cruz made the comments on Monday evening on Fox News, speaking with the network’s Sean Hannity.

“Joe Biden caused this war with Ukraine. How did he do it? When he waived sanctions on Nord Stream 2, sanctions that I authored, that I wrote, that Donald Trump signed into law,” Mr Cruz charged.

He went on to falsely imply that the Nord Stream 2 project had been completed “to let Putin get his gas to Europe”. The Nord Stream 2 pipeline finished construction in September after Mr Biden waived sanctions at Germany’s request, but the pipeline itself never became operational, and may well never be used following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which has caused the project to fall into the sights of the White House.

Mr Cruz’s comments drew a handful of reactions on Twitter, but the Texas senator’s recent flurry of appearances on Fox News have thus far not made a major impact on social media. What has, however, was a tweet from a reporter attending the Senate Judiciary Committee’s confirmation hearings for Ketanji Brown Jackson, who spotted the Republican on his phone checking reactions to his performance at the hearings while they were still ongoing.

“Putin ALONE is responsible for attacking a sovereign country and the human rights atrocities now occurring,” wrote one woman who identified herself as a Texan on Twitter in response.

“Nordstream 2 which hasn't been finished and has not moved any natural gas to Germany and has been basically shut down by Germany???” wrote another.

Mr Biden has vowed publicly that the Nord Stream 2 project will not go forward as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and Germany’s chancellor suspended certification of the project in February, halting all work.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, has described the now-halted project as a “geopolitical weapon” in Russia’s arsenal, and he has personally faulted Germany on several occasions for decisions he believes gave Russia the confidence to invade.

“We always said Nord Stream 2 is a weapon and a preparation for the great war, and we got the answer that it was business, business, business,” he told Germany’s parliament in a stern speech in March.

Adding of Germany’s reluctance to join the US and other western nations in full-throated opposition to Russia, he continued during that speech: “When we appealed for preventative sanctions, we turned to you … but we felt the delay, the resistance ... We’ve understood: You want business, business, business.”