Russian President Vladimir Putin couldn’t afford to invade Ukraine in the past because he couldn’t risk damaging the pipelines he needed to sell his oil and natural gas to Europe – until he built a pipeline to skip Ukraine, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said in a recent interview.

“Putin didn’t wake up yesterday and decide he wanted to invade Ukraine. He’s wanted to invade Ukraine for decades,” Sen. Cruz explained in an appearance on “Spicer & Co” on March 9, in which he detailed how the Trump Administration’s sanctions on Putin’s Nord Stream 2 pipeline had prevented the invasion – until President Joe Biden lifted them.

Putin couldn’t risk destroying pipelines running through Ukraine that Russia needed to deliver and sell its oil and natural gas to Russia, until it built a pipeline to circumvent Ukraine, Sen. Cruz said, recalling Russia’s 2014 invasion of Crimea.