WASHINGTON. President Biden on Thursday denounced Russian President Vladimir Putin and his “ominous vision for the future of our world,” promising that Mr. Putin and his country will pay when the United States imposes a new round of economic sanctions on Russia. invasion of Ukraine.
“Putin is the aggressor. Putin chose this war,” Mr. Biden said in a brief speech from the White House. “And now he and his country will bear the consequences.”
Just hours after Russian rockets and bombs began raining down on Ukrainian cities, setting off Europe’s first major ground war in over 70 years, Mr. Biden lashed out at the Russian leader in language reminiscent of Ronald Reagan’s 1983 speech. on the Soviet Union: in which the former president denounced the “aggressive impulses of the evil empire.”
On Thursday, Mr. Biden said: “Now the whole world sees clearly what Putin and his Kremlin allies are really up to. It never touched on a genuine security concern on their part. It has always been about undisguised aggression, about Putin’s desire for empire by any means.”
Mr. Biden said he has authorized the deployment of more troops to the Eastern European countries that are part of the NATO alliance. While he once again vowed that US troops would not engage Russia in Ukraine, he said the United States would come to the aid of its NATO allies if Russia moved beyond Ukraine’s borders.
“The United States will defend every inch of NATO territory with all the strength of American power,” he said.
The United States has cut off Russia’s leading banks and some of its largest companies from Western financial markets, Mr. Biden announced, and has restricted technology exports to Russia. He said economic action would significantly reduce Russia’s ability to prosper in the coming weeks, months and years.
Mr. Biden also said the United States had frozen trillions of dollars of Russian assets, including funds controlled by Russian elites and their families, in an effort to make them pay for what Mr. Biden called “a brutal attack on the people of Ukraine without provocation.” “. without reason, without necessity.
The president did not order economic sanctions against Putin himself and declined to answer questions about the decision. And he said European allies have resisted further action to block Russia’s access to the global financial network known as Fastnoting that “right now this is not the position that the rest of Europe wants to take”.
Mr. Biden has defended his strategy, which he has publicly outlined over and over again in recent weeks, to thwart a Russian invasion by threatening Mr. Putin with harsh sanctions. In his speech on Thursday, Mr. Biden denied that this strategy had failed despite a full-scale offensive in Ukraine.
“No one expected the sanctions to prevent anything,” Mr. Biden told reporters.
But Mr. Biden and his top aides have been emphasizing containment for weeks now. On Feb. 11, Jake Sullivan, Biden’s national security adviser, said “the president believes sanctions are meant to be a deterrent.” Six days later, Secretary of State Anthony J. Blinken declared that he was at the United Nations “not to start a war, but to prevent it.”
Asked Thursday if the administration thought the sanctions strategy could have prevented a Russian attack, Duleep Singh, deputy national security adviser, told reporters that economic sanctions usually affect leaders because of the impact on their people’s living standards.
“Putin made the wrong choice in this case,” Singh said.
Mr. Biden appears to have changed his case for using economic sanctions, predicting that they will eventually shrink the Russian economy and force Mr. Putin to withdraw his military before too much damage is done to Ukrainians.
Updated
February 24, 2022 7:30 pm ET
“It will take time,” Mr. Biden said. “He’s going to test the resolve of the West to see if we stay together and we will.”
Mr. Biden acknowledged that the conflict in Eastern Europe will be felt at home. White House officials have been warning for days that economic sanctions on Russia could drive up oil prices, even as the United States fights against a spike in inflation.
“I will do everything in my power to lessen the pain the American people feel at the gas station,” he said. “This is critical for me. But this aggression cannot go unanswered.”
“America stands up to bullies,” he added. “That’s who we are.”
But while Mr. Biden suggested it was “highly unlikely” that Americans would experience economic hardship “for a long time” as a result of the sanctions, he also acknowledged that the sanctions would not immediately stop Mr. Putin from continuing his military activities. to attack.
“The sanctions we have imposed have resulted in two-thirds of the world joining us. These are serious sanctions,” he said. “Let’s talk in a month or so to see if they work.”
Mr. Biden’s speech made clear that the purpose of the sanctions had changed since Mr. Putin’s invasion, according to William B. Taylor, Jr., a longtime diplomat who served as acting ambassador to Ukraine during the Trump administration.
Understand Russia’s Attack on Ukraine
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What is at the heart of this invasion? Russia considers Ukraine a part his natural sphere of influence, and is unnerved by Ukraine’s proximity to the West and the prospect of Ukraine joining NATO or the European Union. Although Ukraine is not part of either, it receives financial and military assistance from the US and Europe.
Are these frictions just beginning now? Antagonism between the two countries has simmered since 2014, when Russian troops crossed into Ukraine after an uprising in Ukraine replaced a Russian-friendly president with a pro-Western government. Then, Russia annexed Crimea and inspired separatist movement in the east. A ceasefire was signed in 2015but fighting continued.
How did Ukraine react? February 23, Ukraine declared a state of emergency for 30 days. when cyberattacks took out state institutions. After the attacks began, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky martial law declared. The foreign minister called the attacks a “full-scale invasion” and called on the world to “stop Putin.”
“It didn’t deter him, and perhaps he wasn’t deterred,” Mr. Taylor said of the Russian leader. “And now the sanctions are supposed to weaken his economy to make it harder for him to fight this war. Wars take resources, and sanctions are meant to cripple his economy so he can’t continue the war.”
But Mr Taylor agreed with Mr Biden’s assessment that these economic sanctions are unlikely to provide an immediate reprieve for those on the ground. “Ukrainians are in this for the long haul,” Mr. Taylor said.
Richard Fontaine, executive director of the non-partisan Center for a New American Security and former foreign policy adviser to Senator John McCain, said “attempts to prevent an invasion have failed.” But he added that the economic sanctions announced by Mr. Biden on Thursday could still be an important tool, “imposing costs on Putin.”
“What you are trying to do is at least reduce the appetite he will have by trying to do these things,” Mr. Fontaine said. “Although I am skeptical about this. He added that in the coming weeks, Mr. Biden will face the choice of whether to support a potential insurgency in Ukraine.
The administration is likely to focus its attention on NATO countries near Ukraine, where Mr. Biden is stationing US troops, Fontaine said.
“So much hinges on this uncertainty about what end they are aiming for here,” he said of Mr. Putin.
Mr. Biden reiterated on Thursday that US troops would not fight in Ukraine, but warned that if Russian troops moved into NATO allies, “we will be involved.”
“The only thing that worries me is that if we don’t stop him now, he will grow bolder,” the president added.
Earlier Thursday, Mr. Biden met with his national security team in a situation room. Officials said they discussed “how we will hold Russia accountable for the unprovoked and unjustified attack on Ukraine.” He also met via video link with G7 leaders to coordinate the global response.
Mr. Biden has been threatening for weeks with severe sanctions that could cripple the Russian economy, in the hope that Mr. Putin will abandon plans to invade his neighbor. Earlier this week, Mr. Biden authorized these sanctions when the Russian leader announced his intention to go to war.
But the president and European allies have refrained from the most aggressive sanctions and warned Putin that the punishment would be tougher if his tanks crossed the Ukrainian border.
In his speech Thursday, Mr. Biden said the new moves would go further, in part by imposing restrictions designed to deny Russia access to technologies such as semiconductors, computers, lasers and telecommunications equipment.
The goal is to shrink or even disable industries that Mr. Putin values, including defense, aerospace and shipping. The new restrictions prohibit the sale to Russia of basic technology that is produced outside the United States but is based on American technology or equipment.
According to him, such products can no longer be exported to Russia.