Joe Biden warns Vladimir Putin of ‘serious costs’ of continued military build-up on Ukraine border
- In phone call, the US leader ‘made clear that the United States and its allies and partners will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine’
- Putin gives ‘no declarations’ as to his intentions, says a Biden administration official
Biden “made clear that the United States and its allies and partners will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine”, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said of the call, which lasted around an hour.
Such a response from the US would include economic sanctions, an increase of Nato forces in allied countries in the region and an augmentation of US assistance to Ukraine “to enable it to further defend itself and its territory”, a senior administration official said, reiterating Washington’s previous warnings.
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Biden warns Putin of strong economic sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine
That sentiment echoed a New Year’s greeting Putin sent to Biden before the call, in which the Russian said he was confident that the two countries could establish an effective dialogue “based on mutual respect and consideration for each other’s national interests”.
Biden spoke from his home in Delaware, where he is celebrating the new year with his family. The official declined to say which other US officials took part in the call, but said that Biden had spent the past several days preparing with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, among others.
Putin says he has ‘diverse’ options if West fails to meet security demands
US officials will be sharing an account of the closed-door meeting with allies, particularly Ukraine and Nato partners, said the official.
Requested by Putin, the call was the second this month between the two leaders, after a December 7 call in which Biden warned Putin of “strong economic” retaliation in the event of military escalation by Moscow.
This month, the Pentagon estimated the number of Russian troops on the border at around 100,000. A US intelligence assessment reported by The Washington Post warned that Moscow was planning an attack involving up to 175,000 troops, which might take place as soon as early next year.
Moscow, which denies threatening to invade Ukraine, has said it will scale back its presence on the border if Ukraine is banned from entering Nato – and if the security alliance reverses its expansion into Eastern Europe. Those demands were among a list of eight the Russian foreign ministry released this month.
Biden administration officials have not publicly responded point by point to the demands, though State Department spokesman Ned Price said earlier this week that Moscow knew “full well there are some things in those proposals that will be unacceptable to the United States and to our European allies and partners”.
The proposals are likely to feature prominently in talks to be held between the US and Russia on January 9 and 10 in Geneva. Russian officials will hold talks with Nato representatives on January 12, and a meeting of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe will take place on January 13, the official said.
On the call, Biden stressed that substantive progress in those talks would “occur only in an environment of de-escalation rather than escalation”, Psaki said.
