The German government has put the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project on ice in the wake of Russia’s decision to recognize separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, in one of the most significant international punishments inflicted so far on Moscow. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said in Berlin on Tuesday that a key document required for the certification of the completed pipeline – measuring more than 1,200 kilometres along the bed of the Baltic Sea – would be withdrawn, making it impossible for it to be put into operation. Putin had committed, Scholz said, “a severe breach of international law” b…