MOSCOW (AP) — President Joe Biden ordered heavy U.S. financial sanctions against Russian banks and oligarchs on Tuesday, stepping up the West’s confrontation with Moscow, even as Russian lawmakers authorized President Vladimir Putin to use military force outside their country.
Biden, in a brief address from the White House, accused Putin of flagrantly violating international law in what he called the “beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine,” and promised that more sanctions would be coming if Putin proceeds further.
The president joined the 27 European Union members who unanimously agreed on Tuesday to levy their own initial set of sanctions targeting Russian officials over their actions in Ukraine. Germany also announced it was halting the process of certifying the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia — a lucrative deal long sought by Moscow but criticized by the U.S. for increasing Europe’s reliance on Russian energy.
“None of us will be fooled” by Putin’s claims about Ukraine, the U.S. President said.
Biden said he was also moving additional U.S. troops to the Baltic states on NATO’s eastern flank bordering Russia. The prime minster of Estonia and presidents of Latvia and Lithuania on Friday had made a direct plea to Vice President Kamala Harris for the U.S. to step up its presence in the Baltics.
Biden said the U.S. would impose “full blocking” on two large Russian financial institutions and “comprehensive sanctions” on Russian debt.
“That means we’ve cut off Russia’s government from Western finance,” Biden said. “It can no longer raise money from the West and cannot trade in its new debt on our markets or European markets either.”
The president announced what he called a first tranche of sanctions as Russian troops rolled into rebel-held areas in eastern Ukraine after Putin said he was recognizing the areas’ independence on Monday. It was unclear how large the Russian deployment was, and Ukraine and its Western allies have long said Russian troops were already fighting in the region, allegations that Moscow always denied.
Members of Russia’s upper house, the Federation Council, voted unanimously to allow Putin to use military force outside the country — effectively formalizing a Russian military deployment to the rebel regions, where an eight-year conflict has killed nearly 14,000 people.
Shortly after, Putin laid out three conditions to end the crisis that has threatened to plunge Europe back into war, raising the specter of massive casualties, energy shortages across the continent and economic chaos around the globe.
Putin said the crisis could be resolved if Kyiv recognizes Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow annexed 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.
Asked whether he has sent any Russian troops into Ukraine and how far they could go, Putin responded: “I haven’t said that the troops will go there right now.” He added that “it’s impossible to forecast a specific pattern of action –- it will depend on a concrete situation as it takes shape on the ground.”
The European Union soon followed, with a first set of sanctions aimed at the 351 Russian lawmakers who voted for recognizing separatist regions in Ukraine, as well as 27 other Russian officials and institutions from the defense and banking world. They also sought to limit Moscow’s access to EU capital and financial markets.
With tensions rising and a broader conflict looking more likely, the White House began referring to the Russian deployments in the region known as the Donbas as an “invasion” after initially hesitating to use the term — a red line that President Biden had said would result in severe sanctions against Moscow.
“We think this is, yes, the beginning of an invasion, Russia’s latest invasion into Ukraine,” said Jon Finer, principal deputy national security adviser, said on CNN. “An invasion is an invasion, and that is what is underway.”
