President Joe Biden warned Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday (December 7) that if Russia invades Ukraine, the West will implement “strong economic and other measures” against Russia, while Putin requires assurances that NATO will not go east. expansion.
The two leaders held two hours of online talks on Ukraine and other disputes during a video call on US-Russian relations. US-Russian relations have fallen to their lowest point since the end of the Cold War more than 30 years ago, because Russia has gathered tens of thousands of people. Army at the Ukrainian border.
The Kremlin stated that Putin responded to the warning, demanding reliable and legally binding guarantees for NATO’s eastward expansion, and complained about NATO’s attempts to “explore” Ukrainian territory.
The White House stated that Biden has not made any guarantees to limit NATO’s expansion in Ukraine.
“I will tell you clearly and directly that he did not make such a promise or concession. He supports the idea that countries should be able to freely choose whom to interact with,” Biden’s national security adviser Jack Sullivan told reporters.
No breakthroughs were reported, but the two sides agreed to continue communication. This progress could ease global tensions.
The Kremlin denied any intention to attack Ukraine and stated that the assembly of troops on its southern border is defensive, but neighboring countries are ringing alarm bells.
Biden warned Putin that he may face severe economic sanctions, the disruption of the Beixi 2 natural gas pipeline to Europe, and the United States and European allies will provide Ukraine with additional defense capabilities.
The White House said in a statement that the president “made it clear that if the military escalates, the United States and our allies will take strong economic and other measures to respond.”
“What we didn’t do in 2014 we are now ready to do,” Sullivan told reporters after the conference call, referring to Russia’s response to the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
He said that if there is an attack, if the Baltic allies require the United States to increase “capability” or “deployment,” the United States will seek a positive response.
An official said the United States may also target Russia’s largest banks and Moscow’s ability to convert rubles into U.S. dollars and other currencies.
After Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, Washington focused mainly on defensive, non-lethal aid because it feared that it would exacerbate the crisis.
Sullivan said Biden was “straightforward” with Putin. Sullivan said: “There are many concessions and no wavering, but the president is very clear about the United States’ position on all these issues.”
The Kremlin stated that Putin told Biden that it was wrong to assign all responsibility for the current tension to Russia.
Moscow has expressed growing dissatisfaction with the West’s military assistance to Ukraine. Ukraine has been leaning towards the West since a popular uprising in 2014 overthrew the pro-Russian president and Russia’s so-called NATO gradually expanded.
resistanceAmerica wants to guarantee
The Kremlin stated that Putin complained about NATO’s attempts to “explore” Ukrainian territory.
The Kremlin said: “Therefore, Russia very much hopes to obtain reliable and legally fixed guarantees to exclude the possibility of NATO’s eastward expansion and the deployment of offensive strike weapon systems in countries adjacent to Russia.”
According to the Kremlin, Putin also called for guarantees that offensive strike systems will not be deployed in countries close to Russia.
Russian television images showed that Biden and Putin greeted each other in a friendly manner at the beginning of the virtual summit.
The two sides expressed their hope that the two leaders could hold a face-to-face summit to discuss the relationship between the two countries. The two countries have long-standing differences in Syria, US economic sanctions, and Russia’s cyber attacks on US companies.
A Ukrainian official said after the meeting that Kiev thanked Biden for his “firm support.”
A national defense bill announced by the U.S. Congress after the meeting included an allocation of 300 million U.S. dollars for the Ukrainian military.
For the Kremlin, NATO’s growing embrace of neighboring Ukraine — and the possibility of a nightmare that it considers Ukrainian coalition missiles to target Russia — is a “red line” that is not allowed to be crossed.
Moscow questioned Ukraine’s intentions and expressed its hope to ensure that Kiev would not use force to try to regain territories taken by Russia-backed separatists in 2014, which Ukraine ruled out.
widthEastern Allies Participate
The White House stated that the leaders of the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany and Italy made speeches on Monday and “agreed to adopt a coordinated and comprehensive approach to maintain close contact with Russia’s military buildup on the Ukrainian border”.
The Russian ruble weakened slightly on Tuesday, with some market analysts predicting that negotiations will ease tensions, while others said the threat of US sanctions has weakened hope of finding common ground.
A senior congressional aide said that US officials told members of Congress that they had reached a consensus with Germany to close the Beixi 2 pipeline if Russia invaded Ukraine.
“If President Putin takes action against Ukraine, our expectation is that the pipeline will be suspended,” Victoria Newland, the deputy secretary of state for political affairs, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“If Putin wants to see the gas flowing through that [Nordstream2] He may not want to invade Ukrainian pipelines,” said Jack Sullivan, an adviser to the National Security Council, after the Biden-Putin call.
Sullivan said that the United States had “in-depth discussions” with the outgoing and incoming German governments. pic.twitter.com/I9fCZGqWxf
— Terischultz (@terischultz) December 7, 2021
According to a person with direct knowledge of Russia, the United States has assessed the possibility of restricting investors’ ability to purchase Russian debt in the secondary market. This measure, even if only taken by Washington, is considered to have had a serious impact on the Russian government. . matter.
Washington can also target Russian direct investment funds.
CNN reported that the sanctions may include disconnecting Russia from the SWIFT international payment system used by banks around the world. This is an extreme step that may require coordination with allies.
On Tuesday, German Gref, the chief executive of Russia’s highest bank Sberbank, called the idea “nonsense” and “impossible to implement.”
The United States has urged Ukraine and Russia to return to the Minsk Agreement, a set of largely unimplemented agreements signed in 2014 and 2015 aimed at ending the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
