COMBO created on December 6, 2021 showing Joe Biden and Vladimir Poutine (AFPSPUTNIK / MANDEL NGANMikhail Metzel)
On the eve of a meeting between Joe Biden and Vladimir Poutin, Washington announces the color: if Russia attacks Ukraine, the United States is ready to take unprecedented financial sanctions and to station more soldiers in Europe of the. Is, without going as far as a direct military response.
A senior White House official detailed in a press conference on Monday the levers the United States was ready to operate.
“If Putin moves, there would be increased demand from our ‘Eastern European allies for’ more troops, capabilities and exercises’, and ‘the United States would respond favorably,’ he said.
However, he made it clear that a direct American military response was not currently being considered.
“The United States does not seek to find itself in a position where the direct use of American forces would be at the center of our reflections”, explained this official.
Washington intends to favor, in the event of an invasion of Ukraine, “a combination” of several elements: “support for the Ukrainian army”, “strong economic sanctions” and “a substantial increase in support and capacities with our allies within NATO “.
While the sanctions have so far not made it possible to really influence the decisions of the Kremlin, according to many observers, the American government has been assuring for a few days that it would resort, this time, to unprecedented draconian punitive measures.
“These are measures that we have very intentionally refrained from using in the past” precisely “because of the impact they would have on Russia,” the State Department spokesman said. Ned Price, without detailing them.
Along with this warning, Washington also worked in coordination with its main Western allies, a phone call bringing together the leaders of Germany, the United States, France, Italy and the United Kingdom.
At the end of this conversation, Paris, London, Rome, Berlin and Washington “expressed their determination that the sovereignty” of Ukraine “is respected”, according to a statement from the Elysee Palace on Monday.
Engaged in the same diplomatic offensive, State Secretary Antony Blinken spoke on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the front line in the Donetsk region, December 6, 2021 (Ukrainian presidential press-service / Handout)
“We have agreed to continue our joint and concerted actions,” assured on Twitter the latter, who, wearing a helmet and camouflage bulletproof vest, went to trenches on the front line on Monday with the pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukraine.
The US president will recall his Ukrainian counterpart “in the days following” his conversation with Vladimir Poutine, according to the White House.
– No “breakthrough” –
Ned Price spoke of “a window of opportunity to resolve this through diplomacy”, but the Kremlin told him Monday not to expect a “breakthrough” during the virtual interview.
Kiev and its allies accuse Moscow of having massed troops and tanks on its border in anticipation of a possible attack.
“We do not know if President Putin has made a decision on a possible military escalation in Ukraine. But we do know that he is putting in place the capacities to launch such an escalation,” the senior US official said.
Russia for its part denies any bellicose intention but puts forward certain demands, in particular a commitment that Ukraine will not join NATO, as a large number of countries of the former Soviet bloc have done.
However, neither Kiev nor Washington intend to make such a commitment even if, in fact, the procedure for Ukraine’s accession to the Western military alliance, although officially open, seems frozen.
The 46th President of the United States has never mince words about Vladimir Poutine, whom he met face-to-face in June in Geneva after calling him a “killer” in public.
US President Joe Biden (l) and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin meet in Geneva on June 16, 2021 (POOL / DENIS BALIBOUSE)
He also wants to be the champion of democracy in the world, a position difficult to hold if the United States turns a blind eye to another attack on Ukraine by Russia.
But the 79-year-old Democrat is also hoping, or at least hoped so far, to establish a “stable and predictable” relationship with Russia.
Vladimir Poutine is keen to assert Russia as a power in the global geopolitical game, today dominated by the rivalry between China and the United States.
Ukraine has been torn apart since 2014 by a war that has left more than 13,000 dead between Kiev and pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country, which Russia is accused by the West of supporting. The conflict started after Russia’s annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.
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