Thursday December 30th 2021
Telephone call on the Ukraine conflict
Biden draws a red line towards Putin
At the request of the Kremlin, Biden and Putin want to discuss the simmering conflict in Ukraine. The US side already conveyed a clear stance before the phone call: If there is a further escalation, severe sanctions against Moscow will be the result.
In the event of further military intervention in Ukraine, US President Joe Biden wants to threaten Russian President Vladimir Putin with harsh sanctions. A senior White House representative said that in today’s phone call with Putin, Biden will campaign for a diplomatic solution, but also emphasize the willingness to take tough punitive measures.
“We have coordinated with our allies to impose harsh sanctions on the Russian economy and the financial system – much more than what was implemented in 2014,” said the representative of the US government. At that time, Russia had annexed the Crimean peninsula and began to support separatists in eastern Ukraine. In the event of a renewed Russian invasion of Ukraine, there are already plans to expand NATO’s presence in the Eastern European member states and to strengthen their capabilities, warned the US representative.
In addition, they are ready “to give Ukraine further support to defend its territory and to react to a possible Russian occupation,” he said. “President Biden will make it clear that there is a diplomatic path to de-escalation in the region if President Putin is interested in taking that path,” the US official said.
According to the Kremlin, the short-term phone call with Biden is planned for the late evening (9.30pm CET). The US representative said that the conversation went back to Russia’s request. Both sides are very interested in direct talks in order to avoid an escalation in view of the increasing Russian military presence near the Ukrainian border, he said.
The US has been accusing Russia of a massive deployment of troops not far from the border with Ukraine for weeks. A Russian invasion of the ex-Soviet republic is feared in the West. Russia rejects this and again accuses Ukraine of having deployed additional soldiers in the region. The developments bring back bad memories of the Crimean conflict in 2014 and the annexation of the peninsula by Russia at the time.
Putin agreed to a diplomatic solution last week, but asked for security guarantees. This included an end to NATO’s eastward expansion, and with it a waiver of NATO membership for Ukraine. US Foreign Minister Antony Blinken first spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Selenskyj on Wednesday, and later also in a switch with Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and her counterparts from France and Great Britain, as the ministry said. Washington said they had reaffirmed their “steadfast support” for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Biden and Putin spoke at the beginning of December as part of a two-hour video link. As heads of state, the two first met in person in Geneva in June. Among other things, the phone call is intended to prepare a meeting planned for January 10 in Geneva, which will deal with the Ukraine conflict and probably also with NATO’s security guarantees demanded by Moscow.
Beyond the Geneva meeting, diplomatic efforts to de-escalate the escalating conflict in Ukraine are set to pick up speed in January. NATO is planning talks with the Russian side for January 12th. In addition, there is to be a meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on January 13th.