Joe Biden pledges new Ukraine aid, warns Russia on chemical weapons
President Joe Biden and Western allies pledged new sanctions and humanitarian aid on Thursday in response to Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine, but their offers fell short of the more robust military assistance that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded for in a pair of live-video appearances. Biden also announced the U.S. would welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees — though he said many probably prefer to stay closer to home — and provide an additional $1 billion in food, medicine, water, and other supplies. The Western leaders spent Thursday crafting next steps to counter Russia’s month-old invasion — and huddling over how they might respond should Putin deploy chemical, biological, or even a nuclear weapon. They met in a trio of emergency summits that had them shuttling across Brussels for back-to-back-to-back meetings of NATO, the Group of Seven industrialized nations, and the 27-member European Council. Biden, in an early evening news conference after the meetings, warned that a chemical attack by Russia “would trigger a response in kind.” “You’re asking whether NATO would cross. We’d make that decision at the time,” Biden said. However, a White House official said later that did not imply any shift in the U.S. position against direct military action in Ukraine. Biden and NATO allies have stressed that the U.S. and NATO would not put troops on the ground in Ukraine. The official was not authorized to comment publicly by name and spoke only on condition of anonymity. Zelenskyy, while thankful for the newly promised help, made clear to the Western allies he needed far more than they’re currently willing to give. “One percent of all your planes, one percent of all your tanks,” Zelenskyy asked members of the NATO alliance. “We can’t just buy those. When we will have all this, it will give us, just like you, 100% security.” Biden said more aid was on its way. But the Western leaders were treading carefully so as not to further escalate the conflict beyond the borders of Ukraine. “NATO has made a choice to support Ukraine in this war without going to war with Russia,” said French President Emmanuel Macron. “Therefore, we have decided to intensify our ongoing work to prevent any escalation and to get organized in case there is an escalation.” Poland and other eastern flank NATO countries are seeking clarity on how the U.S. and European nations can assist in dealing with their growing concerns about Russian aggression as well as the refugee crisis. More than 3.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine in recent weeks, including more than 2 million to Poland. Biden is to visit Rzeszów, Poland, on Friday, where energy and refugee issues are expected to be at the center of talks with President Andrzej Duda. He’ll get a briefing on humanitarian aid efforts to assist fleeing refugees and he’ll meet with U.S. troops from the 82nd Airborne Division who have been deployed in recent weeks to bolster NATO’s eastern flank. Billions of dollars of military hardware have already been provided to Ukraine. A U.S. official, who requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said Western nations were discussing the possibility of providing anti-ship weapons amid concerns that Russia will launch amphibious assaults along the Black Sea coast. Biden said his top priority at Thursday’s meetings was to make certain that the West stayed on the same page in its response to Russian aggression against Ukraine. “The single most important thing is for us to stay unified,” he said. Finland announced Thursday it would send more military equipment to Ukraine, its second shipment in about three weeks. And Belgium announced it will add one billion euros to its defense budget in response to Russia’s invasion. At the same time, Washington will expand its sanctions on Russia, targeting members of the country’s parliament along with defense contractors. The U.S. said it will also work with other Western nations to ensure gold reserves held by Russia’s central bank are subject to existing sanctions. With Russia facing increasing international isolation, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg also warned China against coming to Moscow’s rescue. He called on Beijing “to join the rest of the world and clearly condemn the brutal war against Ukraine and not support Russia.” But Stoltenberg, too, made clear that the West had a “responsibility to prevent this conflict from becoming a full-fledged war in Europe.” The possibility that Russia will use chemical or even nuclear weapons has been a grim topic of conversation in Brussels. Stoltenberg said that NATO leaders agreed Thursday to send equipment to Ukraine to help protect it against a chemical weapons attack. White House officials said that both the U.S. and NATO have been working on contingency planning should Russia deploy nonconventional weaponry. NATO has specially trained and equipped forces if there should be such an attack against a member nation’s population, territory, or forces. Ukraine is not a member. Stoltenberg said in an NBC News interview that if Russia deployed chemical weapons, that would make “an unpredictable, dangerous situation even more dangerous and even more unpredictable.” He declined to comment about how the alliance might respond. The White House National Security Council launched efforts days after the invasion through its “Tiger Team,” which is tasked with planning three months out, and a second strategy group working on a longer-term review of any geopolitical shift that may come, according to a senior administration official. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. Both teams are conducting contingency planning for scenarios including Russia’s potential use of chemical or biological weapons, targeting of U.S. security convoys in the region, disruptions to global food supply chains, and the growing refugee crisis. Biden before departing for Europe on Wednesday said that the possibility of a chemical attack was a “real threat.” In addition, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN this week that Russia could consider using its nuclear weapons if it felt there were “an existential threat for our country.” Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin on Thursday warned, “Russia is capable
U.S. hits Vladimir Putin’s allies, press secretary with new sanctions
The Biden administration ordered new sanctions blocking Russian business oligarchs and others in President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle on Thursday in response to Russian forces’ fierce pummeling of Ukraine. Those targeted by the new sanctions include Putin’s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, and Alisher Burhanovich Usmanov, one of Russia’s wealthiest individuals and a close ally of Putin. The U.S. State Department also announced it was imposing visa bans on 19 Russian oligarchs and dozens of their family members and close associates. “The goal was to maximize impact on Putin and Russia and minimize the harm on us and our allies and friends around the world,” Biden said as he noted the new sanctions at the start of a meeting with his Cabinet and Vice President Kamala Harris. The White House said the oligarchs and dozens of their family members will be cut off from the U.S. financial system. Their assets in the United States will be frozen, and their property will be blocked from use. The White House described Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, as ”a top purveyor of Putin’s propaganda.” The property of Usmanov and the others will be blocked from use in the United States and by Americans. His assets include his superyacht, one of the world’s largest, and his private jet, one of Russia’s largest privately-owned aircraft. The Usmanov superyacht, known as Dilbar, is named after Usmanov’s mother and has an estimated worth of between $600 million and $735 million, according to Treasury. Dilbar has two helipads and one of the world’s largest indoor pools ever installed on a yacht and costs about $60 million per year to operate. The jet targeted is believed to have cost between $350 million and $500 million and was previously leased out for use by Uzbekistan’s president. Others targeted Thursday include Nikolai Tokarev, a Transneft oil executive; Arkady Rotenberg, co-owner of the largest construction company for gas pipelines and electrical power supply lines in Russia; Sergei Chemezov, a former KGB agent who has long been close to Putin; Igor Shuvalov, a former first deputy prime minister and chairman of State Development Corp.; and Yevgeniy Prigozhin, a Russian businessman with close ties to Putin. Prigozhin, who is known as “Putin’s chef,” was among those charged in 2018 by the U.S. government as being part of a wide-ranging effort to sway political opinion in America during the 2016 presidential election. According to the indictment then, Prigozhin and his companies provided significant funding to the Internet Research Agency, a St. Petersburg-based group accused of using bogus social media postings and advertisements fraudulently purchased in the name of Americans to influence the White House race. Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said Thursday that the Biden administration would continue to target Russian elites as it builds sanctions against the country. He said elites are already “attempting to get their money out of Russia because the Russian economy is shrinking.” “We’re going to make it hard for them to use the assets going forward,” Adeyemo said at an event hosted by The Washington Post. He added, “Our goal then is to find that money and to freeze that money and to seize it.” The Biden administration has been unveiling new sanctions targeting Russian individuals and entities daily since the start of last week’s invasion, with officials saying they want to make certain Putin’s decision to attack Ukraine will come with enormous cost to Russia’s economy. A notable aspect of the latest sanctions is the extent to which the U.S. penalized the family members of oligarchs and those closest to Putin. Recently passed anti-money-laundering legislation passed by Congress has helped Treasury unveil and target such people. For example, the oil executive Tokarev’s family members — including his wife, Galina Tokareva, and daughter, Maiya Tokareva — have benefited from his proximity to Putin and the Russian government and were hit by the sanctions. Maiya Tokareva’s real estate empire has been valued at more than $50 million in Moscow, according to Treasury. Russian elites that have yet to be targeted by the U.S. or other Western countries have taken notice of the sanctions. Faced with the threat of financial sanctions targeting Russians, Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich announced Wednesday he is trying to sell the Premier League soccer club that became a trophy-winning machine thanks to his lavish investment. Abramovich made his fortune in oil and aluminum during the chaotic years that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Biden had thus far been reluctant to hit the Russian energy sector with sanctions out of concern that it would hurt the U.S. and its allies as well as the Russians. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said, “We don’t have a strategic interest in reducing the global supply of energy.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
War fears grow as Vladimir Putin orders troops to eastern Ukraine
A long-feared Russian invasion of Ukraine appeared to be imminent Monday, if not already underway, with Russian President Vladimir Putin ordering forces into separatist regions of eastern Ukraine. A vaguely worded decree signed by Putin did not say if troops were on the move, and it cast the order as an effort to “maintain peace.” But it appeared to dash the slim remaining hopes of averting a major conflict in Europe that could cause massive casualties, energy shortages on the continent, and economic chaos around the globe. Putin’s directive came hours after he recognized the separatist areas in a rambling, fact-bending discourse on European history. The move paved the way to provide them military support, antagonizing Western leaders who regard such a move as a breach of world order and set off a frenzied scramble by the U.S. and others to respond. Underscoring the urgency, the U.N. Security Council set a rare nighttime emergency meeting on Monday at the request of Ukraine, the U.S., and other countries. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, sought to project calm, telling the country: “We are not afraid of anyone or anything. We don’t owe anyone anything. And we won’t give anything to anyone.” The White House issued an executive order to prohibit U.S. investment and trade in the separatist regions, and additional measures — likely sanctions — were to be announced Tuesday. Those sanctions are independent of what Washington has prepared in the event of a Russian invasion, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity. The developments came amid a spike in skirmishes in the eastern regions that Western powers believe Russia could use as a pretext for an attack on the western-looking democracy that has defied Moscow’s attempts to pull it back into its orbit. Putin justified his decision in a far-reaching, pre-recorded speech blaming NATO for the current crisis and calling the U.S.-led alliance an existential threat to Russia. Sweeping through more than a century of history, he painted today’s Ukraine as a modern construct that is inextricably linked to Russia. He charged that Ukraine had inherited Russia’s historic lands and, after the Soviet collapse was used by the West to contain Russia. “I consider it necessary to take a long-overdue decision: To immediately recognize the independence and sovereignty of Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic,” Putin said. Afterward, he signed decrees recognizing the Donetsk and Luhansk regions’ independence, eight years after fighting erupted between Russia-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces, and called on lawmakers to approve measures paving the way for military support. Until now, Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of supporting the separatists, but Moscow has denied that, saying that Russians who fought there were volunteers. At an earlier meeting of Putin’s Security Council, a stream of top officials argued for recognizing the regions’ independence. At one point, one slipped up and said he favored including them as part of Russian territory — but Putin quickly corrected him. Recognizing the separatist regions’ independence is likely to be popular in Russia, where many share Putin’s worldview. Russian state media released images of people in Donetsk launching fireworks, waving large Russian flags, and playing Russia’s national anthem. Ukrainians in Kyiv, meanwhile, bristled at the move. “Why should Russia recognize (the rebel-held regions)? If neighbors come to you and say, ‘This room will be ours,’ would you care about their opinion or not? It’s your flat, and it will be always your flat,” said Maria Levchyshchyna, a 48-year-old painter in the Ukrainian capital. “Let them recognize whatever they want. But in my view, it can also provoke a war, because normal people will fight for their country.” With an estimated 150,000 Russian troops massed on three sides of Ukraine, the U.S. has warned that Moscow has already decided to invade. Still, Joe Biden and Putin tentatively agreed to a meeting brokered by French President Emmanuel Macron in a last-ditch effort to avoid war. If Russia moves in, the meeting will be off, but the prospect of a face-to-face summit resuscitated hopes in diplomacy to prevent a conflict that could cause massive casualties and huge economic damage across Europe, which is heavily dependent on Russian energy. Russia says it wants Western guarantees that NATO won’t allow Ukraine and other former Soviet countries to join as members — and Putin said Monday that a simple moratorium on Ukraine’s accession wouldn’t be enough. Moscow has also demanded the alliance halt weapons deployments to Ukraine and roll back its forces from Eastern Europe — demands flatly rejected by the West. Macron’s office said both leaders had “accepted the principle of such a summit,” to be followed by a broader meeting that would include other “relevant stakeholders to discuss security and strategic stability in Europe.” U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan, meanwhile, said the administration has always been ready to talk to avert a war — but was also prepared to respond to any attack. Putin’s announcement shattered a 2015 peace deal signed in Minsk requiring Ukrainian authorities to offer broad self-rule to the rebel regions, a major diplomatic coup for Moscow. That deal was resented by many in Ukraine who saw it as a capitulation, a blow to the country’s integrity, and a betrayal of national interests. Putin and other officials argued Monday that Ukrainian authorities have shown no appetite for implementing it. Over 14,000 people have been killed since the conflict erupted in the eastern industrial heartland in 2014, shortly after Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula. Potential flashpoints multiplied. Sustained shelling continued Monday along the tense line of contact separating the opposing forces. Unusually, Russia said it had fended off an “incursion” from Ukraine — which Ukrainian officials denied. And Russia decided to prolong military drills in Belarus, which could offer a staging ground for an attack on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Ukraine and the separatist rebels have traded blame for massive cease-fire violations, with hundreds of explosions recorded daily. While separatists have charged that Ukrainian forces were firing on residential
