Biden Draws Line at Russian Troops Crossing Ukraine Border
Biden Says Russia to ‘Pay a Heavy Price’ If Forces Enter Ukraine
(Bloomberg) -- President Joe Biden said Russia will “pay a heavy price” if any of its forces move across the border into Ukraine after earlier suggesting Western allies might struggle to react to a small-scale attack.
A day before the top U.S. diplomat meets Russia’s foreign minister in Geneva, Biden said Thursday he has issued clear warnings to Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who has amassed about 100,000 troops at the border with Ukraine despite denying any plans to attack.
“If any, any assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion,” Biden said in comments at the White House. Such a move would bring a “severe and coordinated economic response that I’ve discussed in detail with our allies as well as laid out very clearly for President Putin. There is no doubt -- let there be no doubt at all that if Putin makes this choice, Russia will pay a heavy price.”
The president’s remarks continued efforts to clarify his response to a reporter’s question at a White House news conference on Wednesday, when he said the U.S. and its allies had yet to agree on how to hold Moscow accountable over “a minor incursion.” The president also said of Putin, “my guess is he will move in, he has to do something.”
The remarks risked undermining weeks of escalating warnings from American diplomats and prompted White House aides to clarify -- before Biden had even finished speaking -- that any troop movement across the border would prompt “a swift, severe, and united response.”
The mixed messaging comes as Europe and the U.S. have been unable to hash out detailed responses to various scenarios that Russia might pursue in Ukraine, and options like sending NATO troops to the country aren’t on the table.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy made clear that Biden’s remarks on Wednesday weren’t received well in Kyiv. “We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and small nations. Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones,” he said in a tweet.
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday that “high-level” U.S. and Ukrainian officials “have been in touch,” though she added that Biden has not spoken to Zelenskiy since his news conference.
“They certainly understand from those conversations what the president meant,” Psaki told reporters at a briefing. “You saw the president make a statement or convey clearly his point of view this morning, which is reflective of exactly what he said, most importantly, to President Putin.”
GOP Criticism
The president’s initial comments also drew heavy criticism from key Republicans. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the president “telegraphed passivity and weakness exactly when our allies can least afford it.”
In a second week of urgent diplomacy over the Ukraine crisis, the top U.S. and German diplomats met Thursday in Berlin, warning that that any Russian aggression against Ukraine would trigger a serious economic response. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock delivered the warning after a four-way meeting in Berlin with counterparts from France and the U.K., a show of unity amid Russia’s buildup of troops on its border with Ukraine.
“We urgently call upon Russia to take steps to de-escalate,” Baerbock said. “Any further aggression on the part of Russia, any further aggressive attitude on the part of Russia would have grave consequences.”
Blinken’s visit came on the second of a three-day trip meant to signal unity with Ukraine and European allies ahead of a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday.
Despite Russian denials, Biden and Blinken have both warned about the possibility Moscow decides to create a provocation or “false flag” event that Putin would use to justify sending in troops, as he did in previous conflicts in Crimea and Georgia. Blinken said allowing Russia to attack would only embolden Putin to take additional steps.
“If Russia invades and occupies Ukraine, what’s next,” Blinken said in a speech in Berlin on Thursday. “Certainly, Russia’s efforts to turn its neighbors into puppet states, control their activities, and crack down on any spark of democratic expression will intensify.”
Disagreement With Allies
While Russia has repeatedly rejected accusations it intends to invade Ukraine, it is demanding NATO close the door to new members and withdraw to borders it had in the 1990s. The military alliance has ruled that out as a non-starter.
Biden also said Thursday that the U.S. and allies need to be prepared for scenarios short of an invasion.
“Russia has a history of using measures other than overt military action to carry out aggression,” Biden said. “And paramilitary tactics, so-called gray zone attacks and actions by Russian soldiers not wearing Russian uniforms.”
He added: “We have to be ready to respond to these as well” in a “united way with a range of tools at our disposal.”
But the repeated statements of unity between the U.S. and its allies mask disagreements over the type of sanctions that should hit if Russia acts.
“Sanctions have the best effect if they are efficient,” Baerbock said. “That means with regard to sanctions which we can achieve in the areas of the economy and finances to check carefully what has the most effect, and not what maybe looks tough to the outside world.”
On Thursday, the U.S. imposed sanctions on four Ukrainian nationals it says are “pawns” working with Russia’s spy agencies to destabilize their country.
Yet with the U.S. and its allies still unable to settle on the specifics of a response in case of attack, Blinken warned that a weak reaction would mean taking Europe back to the Cold War period, when “this continent -- and this city -- were divided in two, separated by no-man’s-lands patrolled by soldiers, with the threat of all-out war hanging heavily over everyone’s lives.”
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