West threatens Putin with reprisals over Ukraine

Western leaders last night vowed to form a ‘united front’ over Russian threats and hostility toward Ukraine.

The leaders of the US, UK, France, Italy and Germany called on Moscow to de-escalate tensions ahead of a key phone call between Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden today.

They discussed a package of sanctions against President Putin’s regime should he invade Ukraine, with Boris Johnson vowing to use all ‘economic and diplomatic tools at the UK’s disposal’.

The leaders are understood to have devised a strategy to impose significant damage on the Russian economy.

Satellite images show increasing numbers of Russian troops massing on the border of Ukraine – as many as 175,000 according to US analysts.

Measures being considered by Nato are understood to include cutting off Russia from the international financial settlement system, according to The Times. 

President Biden is expected to warn in his phone call that the US would deploy ‘additional forces and capabilities’ to Eastern Europe in response to an invasion.

However, it is believed that he would not go so far as to threaten a direct US military response. A Downing Street spokesman said the leaders emphasised the need for ‘a united front in the face of Russian threats and hostility’.

At the weekend Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed plans for the much-anticipated call, saying it would take place this evening.

Russia is adamant the US should guarantee that Ukraine will not be admitted to the Nato military alliance. 

The Biden administration refused to rule out deploying additional US troops to Eastern Europe should Putin invade Ukraine, although sources insist there are no plans for direct military action against the Kremlin. 

A White House spokesman said Monday evening said that Biden had spoken to the leaders of France, the UK, Germany and Italy, and they discussed ‘their shared concern about the Russian military build-up on Ukraine’s borders and Russia’s increasingly harsh rhetoric.’  

The White House said: ‘The leaders underscored their support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.’ 

Biden will threaten Putin with ‘substantial economic’ sanctions should he invade Ukraine, according to reports. They’re likely to be similar to the economic sanctions imposed on Iran over its attempts to develop a nuclear weapon. 

The plans against Putin would mirror the way Iran was isolated for failing to comply with the nuclear deal.  

Putin has made preparations to invade Ukraine but it’s unclear he’s made the final decision to do so, a senior administration official said on Monday.

The official noted the US was ready to show a ‘combination of support for the Ukrainian military, strong economic countermeasures, and the substantial increase in support and capability to our NATO allies’ if Moscow moved forward with an attack.

The official briefed reporters on the situation in the Ukraine ahead of Biden’s call with Putin on Tuesday.

Taking a tough tone ahead of the conversation between the two leaders, the official noted that the U.S. and Europeans are prepared to place ‘substantial economic’ sanctions on Russia should Putin invade the Ukraine – a message President Biden will send during the virtual talk with his Russian counterpart.

While the official wouldn’t commit to the United States putting boots on the ground in the Ukraine to help President Volodymyr Zelensky, the person did say that in the event of an invasion, the US would offer reassurance to NATO allies with additional forces. 

‘To be clear, we do not know whether President Putin has made a decision about further military escalation in Ukraine. But we do know that he is putting in place the capacity to engage in such escalation should he decide to do so. We’ve seen this Russian playbook before in 2014 when Russia last invaded Ukraine,’ the senior administration official said.

‘We have seen the movement of additional capabilities and forces to the vicinity of Ukraine in multiple different areas. And these movements are consistent with the planning that we see underway for a military escalation in Ukraine,’ the official added. 

The official added that Russia could still choose a ‘different course’ and the Biden administration is encouraging Moscow to ‘return to dialogue through diplomatic avenues.   

On Monday night, The White House said: ‘Today, President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany, Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy, Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom, and President Biden of the United States held a call. 

‘The leaders discussed their shared concern about the Russian military build-up on Ukraine’s borders and Russia’s increasingly harsh rhetoric. 

‘They called on Russia to de-escalate tensions and agreed that diplomacy, especially through the Normandy Format, is the only way forward to resolve the conflict in Donbas through the implementation of the Minsk Agreements. 

‘The leaders underscored their support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

‘They agreed that their teams will stay in close touch, including in consultation with NATO allies and EU partners, on a coordinated and comprehensive approach.’ 

The situation in the Ukraine is expected to be the dominate topic of Biden and Putin’s conversation, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday. 

‘It’s also an opportunity to discuss a range of topics in the US and Russia relationship including strategic stability, cyber and regional issues, but you can certainly expect that the our concerns about the military activities on the border will be a prominent part of the discussion,’ she said at her press briefing of the Tuesday call. 

‘I think our objective from the beginning of the president’s time in office has not been to escalate the relationship but has been to move to a more stable footing in the relationship,’ she noted. 

But, she added, ‘the president is not going to hold back on conveying his concern.’

She also indicated there would be a US military response if Russia invaded, pointing back to the 2014 Russian invasion of the Crimea.

‘If you look back at 2014, that one of the outcomes here, if they were to decide to move forward is that the other countries in the eastern flank, in many of them NATO partners, will be looking for reassurance from the United States. That’s something that was a follow up to 2014. I’m not sure that is what Russia wants to see. But that would be a natural consequence if they were to move forward as well,’ she said.

Psaki pushed back on questions whether Biden’s diplomatic talk with Putin could be effective in staving off an invasion – an approach that didn’t work in 2014 when Russia took the Crimea.

‘We will see if they are but our objective first and foremost is to prevent the move forward the military progression that we saw happen in 2014,’ she said.

‘It’s not about threats,’ she said of the upcoming call. ‘It’s about conveying the right path forward here is through diplomacy.’

U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russia has massed about 70,000 troops near its border with Ukraine and the action has resulted in comparisons being made to Moscow’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.

Ahead of Biden and Putin’s conversation, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spoke with Zelensky.

Biden will call the Ukrainian president in the days following his conversation with Putin, the official said. 

Zelensky said he and Blinken agreed to continue ‘joint and concerted action.’

‘Agreed to continue joint & concerted action. Grateful to U.S. strategic partners & allies for the continued support of our sovereignty & territorial integrity. Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,’ Zelensky wrote on twitter. 

The U.S. will also back its NATO allies in the region, the official said. 

Zelensky has pushed to get the Ukraine made a member of the alliance, but that has not happened yet.

The State Department also made it clear the US would counter any Russian aggression to the Ukraine.

‘If Russia chooses to move forward with any plans it may have developed to continue its military aggression or to aggress militarily upon Ukraine to violate Ukraine’s sovereignty, its independence, its territorial integrity we and our allies would be prepared to act we would be prepared to act resolutely,’ said spokesman Ned Price.

‘There should be no ambiguity about our willingness to do this. And we have made that very clear in public and in private at every turn,’ he added. 

The official hinted at a U.S. deployment to Eastern Europe if Russia invades, saying there would be ‘a positive response from the United States for additional forces and capabilities and exercises to take place to ensure the safety and security of our of our eastern flank allies in the face of that kind of aggression in Ukraine.’

‘I think you could anticipate that in the event of an invasion, the need to reinforce the confidence and reassurance of our NATO allies and our eastern flank allies would be real, and the United States would be prepared to provide that kind of reassurance,’ the official said.    

A Downing Street spokesman said: ‘The leaders agreed that recent meetings of the G20 and of Nato foreign ministers had been useful forums for discussions on this issue. They emphasized the need to provide a united front in the face of Russian threats and hostility.

‘The leaders called on Russia to de-escalate tensions and reaffirmed their staunch support for Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

‘The Prime Minister reiterated the points he made to President Putin when they spoke earlier this year in this regard, and which the Foreign Secretary also made to her Russian counterpart last week. The Prime Minister said the UK would continue to use all the economic and diplomatic tools at its disposal to prevent any Russian aggression against Ukraine.

‘The leaders agreed to speak again following President Biden’s conversation with President Putin tomorrow.’

Their diplomacy comes after a report on Friday suggested that Russia is planning a possible military offensive against Ukraine involving an estimated 175,000 troops that could begin as soon as early 2022.

An unclassified intelligence document, obtained by The Washington Post, showed satellite images of troop and equipment build up around the border with Ukraine. 

Photos taken in June around Yelnya, near the northern border between Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, showed empty land. By November 9, five Battalion Tactical Groups (BTGs) were in place, the photos showed.

In 2014, similar scenes were replicated along the Russian-Ukrainian border near Crimea before Russia seized the strategic port on the Black Sea.

‘The Russian plans call for a military offensive against Ukraine as soon as early 2022 with a scale of forces twice what we saw this past spring during Russia’s snap exercise near Ukraine’s borders,’ an administration official told the paper. 

‘The plans involve extensive movement of 100 battalion tactical groups with an estimated 175,000 personnel, along with armor, artillery and equipment.’ 

Ukrainian assessments have said Russia has approximately 94,000 troops near the border, but the U.S. believes the figure is closer to 70,000.

However, US officials expect an increase to 175,000, and warn that there will likely be significant movement of battalion tactical groups to and from the border ‘to obfuscate intentions and to create uncertainty.’ 

‘Equipment may be left behind at different training ranges to enable a rapid, final buildup,’ the document adds. 

Leaving the White House for Camp David, Biden said: ‘We’ve been aware of Russia’s actions for a long time and my expectation is we’re going to have a long discussion.’ 

When asked if he accepts Putin’s red line – that Ukraine not join NATO – he said, ‘I won’t accept anybody’s red line.’ 

Putin said this week that Russia needs ‘precise legal, judicial guarantees because our Western colleagues have failed to deliver on verbal commitments they made.’

He said a concrete agreement must ‘rule out any further eastward expansion of NATO and the deployment of weapons systems posing a threat to us in close proximity to Russia’s territory.’ 

On Thursday, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

Blinken warned Moscow of the ‘severe costs’ Russia would pay if it invaded Ukraine, urging his Russian counterpart on Thursday to seek a diplomatic exit from the crisis.

Blinken delivered the warning to the Russian Foreign Minister at what he called a ‘candid’ meeting in Stockholm, and said it was likely that Biden and Vladimir Putin would speak soon. 

‘I made very clear our deep concerns and our resolve to hold Russia responsible for its actions, including our commitment to work with European allies to impose severe costs and consequences on Russia if it takes further aggressive action against Ukraine,’ Blinken told a news conference after the meeting.

‘It’s now on Russia to de-escalate the current tensions by reversing the recent troop buildup, returning forces to normal peacetime positions and refraining from further intimidation and attempts to destabilize Ukraine.’

Lavrov, speaking to reporters before his talks with Blinken, said Moscow was ready for dialogue with Kyiv. 

‘We, as President Putin has stated, do not want any conflicts,’ he said. 

Blinken, before the meeting, stated: ‘We don’t know whether President Putin has made the decision to invade. 

‘We do know that he is putting in place the capacity to do so on short order should he so decide. 

‘We must prepare for all contingencies.’ 

The new intelligence finding, published on Friday, estimates that half of the Russian personnel are already deployed along various points near Ukraine’s border, according to a Biden administration official who spoke to Associated Press.

Russia has picked up its demands on Biden to guarantee that Ukraine will not be allowed to join the NATO alliance.

Intelligence officials also have seen an uptick in Russian information operations’ use of proxies and media outlets to denigrate Ukraine and NATO ahead of a potential invasion, the official said.

Earlier on Friday, Biden pledged to make it ‘very, very difficult’ for Putin to take military action in Ukraine.

He said new initiatives coming from his administration are intended to deter Russian aggression.

‘What I am doing is putting together what I believe to be will be the most comprehensive and meaningful set of initiatives to make it very, very difficult for Mr Putin to go ahead and do what people are worried he may do,’ Biden told reporters.

The Kremlin said on Friday that Putin would seek binding guarantees precluding NATO’s expansion to Ukraine during the call with Biden.

The Ukrainian defense minister went even further, warning that Russia could invade his country next month

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told lawmakers on Friday that the number of Russian troops near Ukraine and in Russian-annexed Crimea is estimated at 94,300, warning that a ‘large-scale escalation’ is possible in January. 

A Ukrainian government official told the Post that military exercises earlier this year were seen as a rehearsal for an invasion.

‘The Russian troops worked out the issues of creating strike groups near the borders of our state, mobilization measures, logistical support of groups, [and] transfer of significant military contingents, including by air,’ from Russia to the border with Ukraine, the official said. 

U.S.-Russia relations have been rocky since Biden took office.

In addition to the Ukraine issue, the Biden administration has levied sanctions against Russian targets and called out President Vladimir Putin on Kremlin interference in U.S. elections, cyberactivity against U.S. businesses, and the treatment of opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who was poisoned last year and then later imprisoned.

Putin and Biden met face to face in Geneva in June, with the U.S. president warning if Russia crossed certain red lines – including going after major American infrastructure – his administration would respond and ‘the consequences of that would be devastating.’

Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have also tentatively agreed to have a call next week, according to a person close to the Ukrainian president.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said administration officials have ‘engaged in the possibility’ of a Biden-Putin call.  

‘It certainly would be an opportunity to discuss our serious concerns about the bellicose rhetoric, about the military buildup that we’re seeing on the border of Ukraine,’ Psaki said of a potential Biden-Putin call.

Biden did not detail what actions he was weighing. 

But Lavrov has threatened new sanctions in response to any U.S. action. 

‘If the new ‘sanctions from hell’ come, we will respond,’ Lavrov said. 

‘We can’t fail to respond.’

Psaki said on Friday that the administration would look to coordinate with European allies if it moved forward with sanctions. 

She noted that bitter memories of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that had been under Ukraine’s control since 1954, are front of mind as the White House considers the way forward.

‘We know what President Putin has done in the past,’ Psaki said. 

‘We see that he is putting in place the capacity to take action in short order.’

Deep differences were on display during the Blinken-Lavrov meeting, with the Russia official charging the West was ‘playing with fire’ by denying Russia a say in any further NATO expansion into countries of the former Soviet Union. 

Zelenskyy has pushed for Ukraine to join the alliance, which holds out the promise of membership but has not set a a timeline.

Blinken this week said the U.S. has ‘made it clear to the Kremlin that we will respond resolutely, including with a range of high-impact economic measures that we’ve refrained from using in the past.’

He did not detail what sanctions were being weighed, but one potentially could be to cut off Russia from the SWIFT system of international payments. 

The European Union’s Parliament approved a non-binding resolution in April to cut off Russia from SWIFT if its troops entered Ukraine.

Such a move would go far toward blocking Russian businesses from the global financial system. 

Western allies reportedly considered such a step in 2014 and 2015, during earlier Russian-led escalations of tensions over Ukraine.

Then-Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said it would be tantamount to ‘a declaration of war.’