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Biden toughens his warnings to Putin after criticism of Ukraine and says he will "pay dearly" if Russian troops cross the border

2022-01-20T17:38:05.388Z


“We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions and no small nations, just as there are no minor casualties and little grief for the loss of loved ones,” Ukraine said after Biden tied his response to the severity of the invasion.


President Joe Biden on Thursday amended his words from hours before about a Russian invasion in Ukraine, when he stated, about the possible response of the United States, that "it will depend on what Russia does."

“We have to see if it is a minor incursion,” he said.

Faced with the anger of the Ukrainian authorities, who stressed this Thursday that "no invasion is minor", Biden indicated that Russia "will pay dearly" in case of acting, and made it clear that "if any of the Russian units cross the Ukrainian border, that it's an invasion."

“We want to remind the great powers that there are no minor incursions or small nations,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had said shortly before this Thursday on the social network Twitter, “just as there are no minor casualties or little sorrow for the loss of loved ones. ”.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba also warned that Biden's comments could invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to act. “We should not give Putin the slightest opportunity to play with quasi-aggression operations or small incursions,” he told The Wall Street Journal, although he added that “there was no doubt that Biden is committed to Ukraine.”

White House officials had previously tried to clarify that by the term "minor invasion," the president was talking about a nonmilitary action, such as a cyberattack. In his speech this Thursday, Biden has also insisted on that line, assuring that Russia "has used other methods" in the past that did not amount to an invasion, mentioning the "green men" of the Donbas region, in the eastern Ukraine. In 2014, Russia invaded Crimea and backed an insurgency in Donbas, a move that caught former President Barack Obama's administration by surprise. 

Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday in an interview with NBC News that the United States "is prepared to make Russia pay a high and severe price" if it launches an invasion, although she stressed that "the first approach, priority and preference is that These problems can be resolved diplomatically.

Russia, for its part, has denied having intentions to enter the country, despite having transferred more than 100,000 soldiers to the border in recent weeks;

This Thursday he announced military maneuvers for his entire naval fleet, but at the same time he accused Western countries of plotting "provocations" against him.

Shipment of weapons to Ukraine

The State Department has given three NATO allies the green light to send anti-armor missiles and other US-made weapons to Ukraine.

Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania have requested authorization to send weapons in recent weeks, and it was approved on Wednesday, an official told the Politico news website. 

These are former Soviet republics that, due to their location, are at high risk from Russia's advances.

Not only are they trying to send weapons to Ukraine, but they have also requested more support from NATO. 

The United States will also begin the process of shipping $200 million worth of anti-armor missiles, ammunition and other equipment directly to Ukraine in the coming days.

Last year, the US transferred $650 million worth of weapons and military equipment to Ukraine, the most for a year since security assistance began in 2014.

Russia's response

Russia accuses Western states of plotting "provocations" in Ukraine, citing arms deliveries to the country by British military transport planes in recent days.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova alleged that speeches about an imminent Russian attack by the US and Ukraine were a "cover for organizing their own large-scale provocations, including those of a military nature." .

However, Russia has concentrated some 100,000 troops near Ukraine.

A dozen infantry brigades have been stationed along the country's border, equipped with tanks, rocket launchers and mobile artillery.

Its advance would be nearly impossible to stop, analysts estimate, though the missiles Ukraine possesses, and the ones it will gain, could impose a cost on Russian forces. 

The conflict between the two countries escalated from NATO's growing support for Ukraine, in terms of weapons, training and personnel, which Moscow sees as a threat to its own security.

He also accused Ukraine of increasing the number of its own troops in preparation for an attempt to retake the Donbas region, a charge Ukraine has denied.

Showing a common front

Front-line diplomats from the US and Europe are seeking to show a common front, but some fractures or missteps were seen on Wednesday after the president said a "minor incursion" would provoke a minor response.

The comments sparked an outpouring of criticism at home that he was not being tough enough on Russia and raised the specter of possible divisions abroad.

Some pundits point out that

Biden did no more than state the obvious

: There is no unified position on how to respond to a potential invasion.

NATO of 30 countries and a European Union of 27 "are never perfectly united, we are not an autocracy, there are always differences and openly," Ulrich Speck of the German Marshall Fund in Berlin told The New York Times. 

The European Union sees its main strength as economic sanctions, and those are an active topic of intense and secret discussions, senior European officials told the newspaper.

Tough sanctions will come if Russia does not respond to diplomacy, but they will inevitably be calibrated to what it actually does.

Everyone agrees that there should be a tough response, but some countries are more cautious than others, and everyone knows that such measures will hurt the European economy much more than the US.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday stressed the commitment of the United States and Europe to support Ukraine.

"We will not treat the principles of sovereignty or territorial integrity as negotiable," Blinken said at a news conference with his German counterpart.

He added that the crisis could have global consequences and that the situation is "bigger than a conflict between two countries, and it is bigger than a confrontation between Russia and NATO."

Source: telemundo

All news articles on 2022-01-20

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