Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak has met with his U.S. counterpart Rick Perry and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to discuss energy issues and U.S. sanctions on Russia. “We met. We discussed energy issues, among other things. We touched upon questions related to sanctions,” Novak said in a press briefing in Washington after meeting on June 26 with Mnuchin, who in the last year has issued stiff sanctions on Russian tycoons, defense and intelligence agencies, and other targets. “We can’t sidestep these difficult questions, so of course we touched upon them during our contact,” Novak said. Russian state-run news agency TASS said Novak specifically raised the issue of recent U.S. threats to impose sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream II gas-pipeline project, which is planned to run through the Baltic Sea to Germany. The U.S. Congress in a Russian-sanctions law passed last year authorized Mnuchin to impose sanctions on the […]