Photo: Chris McGrath/Getty
By declaring two territories in eastern Ukraine independent states andordering troops to the region, Russian PresidentVladimir Putinnow faces a growing list of bitingsanctions from the U.S.and its allies for what PresidentJoe Bidencalled a “flagrant violation of international law” and the start of an invasion that could kick off the first major European conflict in decades.
Though the penalties may be stiff for Russia, world leaders fear their deterrents may not prevent a war, with more than 100,000 troops are stationed along the border with Ukraine awaiting Putin’s orders.
“If the worst happens, then a European nation of 44 million men, women and children will become the target of a full-scale war of aggression waged without a shred of justification,” U.K. Prime MinisterBoris Johnson told British lawmakers.
Geopolitical Fallout
Apart from possible bloodshed, western democracies see the potential for a disruption in global political stability as Putin — and others, like China’s similarly autocratic leader Xi Jinping — discard long-standing norms and doctrine in favor of unilateral, anti-democratic actions like what the U.S. describes as Russia starting to invade its neighbor.
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“The stakes go far beyond Ukraine,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinkentold the U.N. Security Council last week.
China neither criticized nor endorsed Russia’s latest moves,The New York Timesreports, but was not vague about the sanctions that followed.
“Since 2011, the United States has imposed sanctions on Russia more than 100 times, but we can all think about it calmly, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry said Wednesday. “Have U.S. sanctions solved the problem?”
Vladimir Putin.ALEXANDER NEMENOV/AFP via Getty
CBS News' chief foreign affairs correspondent andFace the NationmoderatorMargaret Brennanspoke to PEOPLE about potential long-term fallout from the crisis.
“The question overhanging all of this is: Are we at a point where we are clearly looking at a new world order?” she said. “That’s what Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping of China have stood up there and said. And whether we really are trying to figure out what the world looks like, if it’s that international order — all the systems and international organizations to date are being pulled at the seams.”
“That is how the Biden administration is framing this,” Brennan added. “It’s about democracy versus autocracy.”
State of Emergency
With backing fromPresident Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s parliament voted todeclare a nationwide state of emergencybeginning Thursday over fears that Russia will attack, escalating beyond its support for Ukraine’s disputed breakaway territories.
A Pentagon official said Wednesday that it is believed nearly all the Russian forces along the Ukraine border are now ready as soon as Putin gives the green light. “It is our assessment that he is fully prepared to conduct a large-scale invasion,” the officialtoldThe Washington Post.
“Our information indicates clearly that these forces, including ground troops, aircraft, ships are preparing to launch an attack against Ukraine in the coming days,” he said last week.
Also last week, President Biden said the U.S. believes Russia “will target Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million innocent people,” and warned Americans there to leave the country.
“We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world,” Biden said of a potential invasion. “Things could go crazy quickly.”
Speaking to reporters over the weekend, Prime Minister Johnson said British intelligence indicated that a full-scale invasion would not be limited to eastern territories but would include forces “coming down from the north, down from Belarus and actually encircling Kyiv itself.”
RUSSIAN DEFENCE MINISTRY PRESS SERVICE/HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The fighting could be intense. In Donbas, the eastern region, more than 14,000 people have died since fighting began there in 2014 between pro-Russian separatists and others loyal to Ukraine. Another 2 million have fled the violence and economic ruin that’s plagued the territories in recent years.
Though the prospect of war looms, Biden has vowed to keep American ground troops out of possible fighting in Ukraine, saying Friday that the option is “not on the table.”
In January, a Pentagon spokesman said up to 8,500 U.S. troops were put on heightened alert for a possible deployment to NATO allies in Eastern Europe and the Baltics, which would include warships and aircraft.
“The United States and our allies are prepared to defend every inch of NATO territory from any threat to our collective security as well,” Biden said. “We also will not send troops in to fight in Ukraine, but we will continue to support the Ukrainian people.”
Economic Costs
However, the president warned Americans in a speech on Tuesday that “defending freedom will have costs for us as well here at home.”
Biden said his administration had imposed new sanctions on Russia that have been “closely coordinated with our allies and partners” and will go “far beyond” steps implemented in 2014, when Russia seized Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.
The “first tranche” of measures target Russian financial institutions, its sovereign debt and the country’s elites and their family members, Biden said.
“We’ve cut off Russia’s government from western financing,” he also said, adding that the elites “share in the corrupt gains of the Kremlin policies and should share in the pains as well.”
The new measures come after the administration banned American economic activity in the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic in Donbas, and Germany announced that it willhalt the certification of Nord Stream 2, a major natural gas pipeline that links the country with Russia via the Baltic Sea, in response to Putin’s decree and decision to move troops into Ukraine.
Chris McGrath/Getty
“If Russia goes further with this invasion,” Biden added, “we stand prepared to go further with sanctions.”
But that could mean an even bigger financial squeeze for the American people, including at the gas pump, as the U.S. continues its economic recovery.
“The first things to react to a crisis like this are the oil and gas markets and that there could be further supply chain issues that result from a conflict in the middle of Europe,” Brennan told PEOPLE of the president’s thinking as he announced the sanctions against Russia.
“It’s really bad for the economy and for the markets when there is uncertainty,” Brennan continued. “We are already in this recovery of constantly starting and stopping when it comes toCOVID. You have uncertainty on that front. Now we have the uncertainty of geopolitical risk. Where does Vladimir Putin stop? Does this spill over into Poland or Romania or Lithuania, countries that the United States would be required to help militarily defend? That question of just how far it goes makes big companies and big investors move a little bit more slowly or be more calculated in their decisions. All of that can potentially cause economic problems.”
In his remarks on Tuesday, Biden promised to take “robust action so that the pain of our sanctions is targeted at the Russian economy and not ours.”
source: people.com
