U.S. President Joe Biden holds virtual talks with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin amidst Western fears that Moscow prepares to attack Ukraine, throughout a safe and secure video call from the Situation Room at the White House in Washington, U.S., December 7, 2021.
The White House by means of Reuters
WASHINGTON– President Joe Biden stated Wednesday that his administration was ruling out sending out U.S. soldiers to Ukraine amidst a disconcerting Russian military accumulation on its shared border.
“Unilateral troops in Ukraine not on the table,” Biden informed press reporters at the WhiteHouse “If you invade Ukraine there will be severe consequences. Economic consequences. He knows that,” the president stated, referencing what he informed Russian President Vladimir Putin in their two-hour call the day previously.
Biden stated in lieu of a U.S. troop release to Ukraine, his administration would work to enhance American military existence in NATO nations.
In a Kremlin readout of the call in between the 2 leaders, Putin worried to Biden that NATO is accountable for intensifying stress on Russia’s borders and implicated the 30- member alliance of developing armed forces in states nearby to Russia.
Even as the Kremlin has actually dismissed ideas that Moscow was getting ready for an attack on Ukraine, Putin informed Biden on the call that Ukraine’s quote to sign up with NATO should be rejected in return for guarantees that Russian soldiers would not strike.
Biden didn’t accept Putin’s “red lines” on Ukraine throughout their high-stakes video call Tuesday.
Ukraine has actually looked for approval into the alliance because 2002, where an attack on one member nation is thought about an attack on all of them. Russia has actually protected its right to release soldiers by itself area.
The Kremlin has actually formerly defined NATO’s eastward growth as a direct security danger, arguing that Ukraine’s approval into the alliance might lead to NATO troop motions on Russia’s borders.
Ukraine has actually cautioned Washington and European allies for weeks that Russian soldiers were massing along its eastern border, an advancement that mimics Moscow’s 2014 intrusion ofCrimea The addition of the Black Sea peninsula stimulated a global outcry and activated a series of sanctions on Moscow.
The Biden administration aspires to make it clear to Russia and the world that it is prepared to be harder this time around, compared to 2014, when Russian forces annexed Crimea.
“The things we did not do in 2014, we are prepared to do now,” nationwide security consultant Jake Sullivan stated Tuesday on the heels of the call.
When asked particularly what steps the U.S. was prepared to enforce, Sullivan decreased to elaborate.
Sullivan included that the White House was working carefully with European allies, specialists from the Treasury Department, the State Department and the National Security Council on a bundle of financial and political countermeasures.
The State Department stated Wednesday that European Council president Charles Michel concurred in a call with Secretary of State Antony Blinken that the U.S. and European Union must “impose swift and severe costs on Russia if it escalates its aggression in Ukraine.”
“Secretary Blinken and President Michel reaffirmed U.S. and European Union support for Ukraine’s sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity,” according to a readout of the call.
The 2 likewise shared issues about Russia’s growing military existence around Ukraine and highlighted the requirement for Russia to de-escalate and go back to diplomacy.
