'If Russia goes further with this invasion, we stand prepared to go further as with sanctions,' Biden said.
MOSCOW -- The East-West faceoff over Ukraine escalated dramatically Tuesday, with Russian lawmakers authorizing President Vladimir Putin to use military force outside his country and U.S. President Joe Biden and European leaders responding by slapping sanctions on Russian oligarchs and banks.
"We are united in our support of Ukraine," Biden said."We are united in our opposition to Russian aggression." When it comes to Russian claims of a justification or pretext for an invasion, Biden said,"None of us should be fooled. None of us will be fooled. There is no justification."President Biden unveiled new sanctions on Russia while pledging military supplies and might, but no direct U.S. military muscle.
Biden, though, did hold back some of the broadest and toughest of the financial penalties contemplated by the U.S., including sanctions that would reinforce the hold that Germany put on any startup of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline; an export ban that would deny Russia U.S. high tech for its industries and military; and sweeping bans that could cripple Russia's ability to do business with the rest of the world.
Putin said the crisis could be resolved if Kyiv recognizes Russia's sovereignty over Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow annexed after seizing it from Ukraine in 2014, renounces its bid to join NATO and partially demilitarizes. The West has decried the annexation of Crimea as a violation of international law and has previously flatly rejected permanently barring Ukraine from NATO.
"We think this is, yes, the beginning of an invasion, Russia's latest invasion into Ukraine," Jon Finer, principal deputy national security adviser, said on CNN."An invasion is an invasion, and that is what is underway."
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