The two leaders squared off about Russia’s possible invasion of Ukraine.
President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a high-stakes summit yesterday to discuss Russia’s growing military presence near the Ukraine border, a volatile situation with severe international implications. Here are some key takeaways from the discussion.
Biden issues a warning
In a two-hour video call, Biden directly told Putin that ”if Russia further invades Ukraine, the United States and our European allies would respond with strong economic measures,” Biden’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan said. Thousands of Russian troops have been stationed near the Ukraine border, raising concerns about a potential invasion of the former Soviet republic.
Biden also made it “crystal clear” to Putin that the U.S. is “prepared to do now” things it didn’t do in 2014, when Russia invaded and annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine, Sullivan added. At the time, Biden served as vice president and visited Ukraine on multiple occasions.
Backup could be coming
Sullivan said the U.S. is prepared to send supplies and more resources to Ukraine. He added that the U.S. is also ready to “fortify our NATO allies on the eastern flank with additional capabilities” in the case of a military escalation.
Will Russia press on?
Recently, U.S. intelligence disclosed that the Kremlin has envisioned an invasion into Ukraine involving as many as 175,000 troops that could take shape as early as next year. Ukrainian forces would have little chance of fending off an offensive of that size.
However, the Biden administration says it believes Putin still hasn’t made a decision on whether or not to pull the trigger. Ahead of Tuesday’s summit, Biden said that the U.S. and its allies had developed the “most comprehensive and meaningful set of initiatives to make it very, very difficult” for Russia to invade.
Putin views Ukraine, which has attempted to align itself with the west since ousting a pro-Russian president in 2014, as a potential security threat, and recently said Russia is intent on securing guarantees that Ukraine not join NATO or host more Western forces. He has also repeatedly asserted that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people,” with generations of shared cultural history.
We’ll have to stay tuned to see what Russia does next.
