Biden Imposes Additional Sanctions After Russia Invades Ukraine
"Putin is the aggressor,” Biden declared at the White House. “Putin chose this war, and now he and his country will bear the consequences.”
The new sanctions target Russian banks, oligarchs and high-tech sectors. Biden said that over time the sanctions would “squeeze Russian assets” and impair its “economic growth for years to come. It will be a major hit to their long-term ambitions.”
Watch President Biden's press conference:
The U.S. leader acknowledged American motorists would be pinched with higher gasoline prices because of surging world oil prices brought on by Russia’s war on Ukraine. But, Biden said, “this aggression cannot go unanswered. America stands up for freedom. This is who we are.”
He rebuked Putin for claiming in the weeks before starting the war that he had been interested in negotiating with the U.S. and its allies over Russia's security concerns in Europe. Putin had asserted that the U.S.-led NATO military alliance formed after World War II posed a threat to Russia.
“This was never about security,” Biden said. “This was always about naked aggression, about Putin’s desire for empire.”
Now, Biden said, because of his attack on Ukraine, “Putin will be a pariah on the world stage.”
U.S. troops will not join the fight in Ukraine, Biden reiterated, but he committed the U.S. military to fighting alongside NATO allies if Putin advances his attacks past Ukraine and invades any of the 30 NATO countries. The Pentagon announced it was deploying 7,000 more U.S. troops to Germany to bolster NATO’s force in Europe.
Moreover, Biden said, sanctioning Putin’s personal assets remains a possibility if warfare escalates even further.
But even as it stands, Biden said, there is a “total rupture” in U.S.-Russia relations.
'Decapitating the Ukraine government'
Earlier, a U.S. defense official said Russia has “every intention” of overthrowing the Ukrainian government with Putin’s invasion of the country.
“What we are seeing is initial phases of a large-scale invasion,” a senior Pentagon official told reporters. “They’re making a move on Kyiv.”
“They have every intention of decapitating the Ukraine government,” the official said.
The official said the first Russian assault involved more than 100 short-range ballistic missiles as well as medium-range ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and surface-to-air missiles. The missiles were targeted at military sites — airfields, barracks and warehouses.
The United States has “seen indications” that Ukrainian troops “are resisting and fighting back,” the official said.
Putin launched the invasion early Thursday in the biggest European onslaught since the end of World War II, attacking Ukrainian forces in the disputed eastern region and launching missiles on several key cities, including the capital, Kyiv.
Putin called it a “special military operation” aimed at the “demilitarization and denazification” of Ukraine, a former Soviet republic that has been an independent country since 1991.
Warning against intervention
In a pre-dawn television address from the Kremlin, the Russian leader warned other countries not to intervene and said they would face “consequences they have never seen.”
Biden met with his National Security Council at the White House to discuss the Russian attack and how the U.S. should respond. He also conferred with European leaders.
The U.S. and several allies had already imposed a first tranche of sanctions Tuesday, a day after Putin declared the disputed eastern Ukrainian Luhansk and Donetsk regions as independent states and no longer part of Ukraine, much as he appropriated Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.
But the initial sanctions, and the threat of tougher ones to follow, did not stop Putin from launching a full-blown war.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called Russia’s attack “amongst the darkest hours for Europe since the end of World War II.” Speaking to reporters Thursday, Borrell said Ukraine needs “urgent assistance” and that the EU would “respond in the strongest possible terms.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces carried out strikes on Ukraine's military infrastructure and border guards.
Ukraine’s military said Russia began shelling Ukrainian forces in the country’s east Thursday morning and carried out rocket strikes at airports in multiple cities across Ukraine. A Zelenskyy aide told reporters at least 40 people have been killed.
Downtown Kyiv, for the most part, was deserted. In residential districts, lines formed at banks and outside food stores. Main roads leading out of the city were clogged with traffic headed to the west.
VOA’s Jamie Dettmer reported that “the military airport of Hostomel, west of Kyiv, was struck early Thursday by attack helicopters, much deeper inside Ukraine than 20 kilometers.”
Dettmer added, “According to former Deputy Prime Minister Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Russian military forces broke through into Ukraine in the Kyiv region at the Vilcha checkpoint. Border guards, together with the Ukrainian military, are now fighting to contain the breach. Additionally, Russian forces launched multiple rocket attacks on border guards at Mlachivka in the region of Zhytomyr, west of Kyiv.”
Global sanctions
Biden said he discussed the situation in a phone call with Zelenskyy, who asked him to “call on the leaders of the world to speak out clearly against President Putin’s flagrant aggression, and to stand with the people of Ukraine.”
European Union leaders were also preparing what EU foreign policy chief Borrell said would be “the harshest package of sanctions we have ever implemented.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted Thursday that the Russian leader had launched “a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”
He said the international community needed to respond with “devastating sanctions on Russia,” as well as send weapons, military equipment, financial assistance and humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
NATO response
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg called Russia’s attack a “grave breach of international law.”
"NATO allies will meet to address the consequences of Russia’s aggressive actions. We stand with the people of Ukraine at this terrible time. NATO will do all it takes to protect and defend all allies,” Stoltenberg said in a statement.
Ukraine is not a NATO member, although its constitution says that is its aim. Putin has demanded that the West disavow Ukraine membership in NATO, which the West has refused to do.
NATO leaders are due to meet Friday, and the alliance has activated its defense plans for member states in the region.
Lithuania, a NATO member, declared a state of emergency Thursday and ordered its army to deploy along its border with Belarus.
‘Special operation’
Russia’s U.N. ambassador, who also happens to be the president of the Security Council this month, presided over a meeting during which Putin’s actions were denounced by nearly every member.
“We don’t know all the details today, but briefly, I’d like to inform you that from his statement it says the occupation of Ukraine is not in our plans,” Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya said. “The aim of the special operation is to protect the people who for eight-plus years have been suffering genocide from the Kyiv regime. And from this, we will demilitarize and degenocide Ukraine, and also hold accountable those who carried out so many crimes against civilians, including citizens of the Russian Federation.”
Ukraine’s envoy told the council it was too late to speak about de-escalation, as the Russian war had begun.
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the council needed to act, and that a draft resolution would be put on the table Thursday.
A European diplomat said Security Council members were discussing a resolution that would make clear that Russia was not complying with the U.N. Charter, international law or Security Council Resolution 2202 — which endorsed the Minsk agreements — and it would urge Russia to immediately return to compliance.
Russia would be expected to veto such a measure, but a strong number of members voting for it would increase Moscow’s isolation in the council. Diplomats would then likely move quickly to the General Assembly, where it could be adopted without a threat of veto but with no legal backing.
White House correspondent Anita Powell, U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer, Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb, State Department bureau chief Nike Ching, refugee correspondent Heather Murdock in Slovyansk and Jamie Dettmer in Kyiv contributed to this report. Some information came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.