On Thursday, President Biden announced more sanctions on Russia in response to Moscow’s military offensive in Ukraine.
The sanctions aim to cut exports to Russia, block the assets of four major Russian banks, and target individual Russian “elites.” For now, the US and its allies are not trying to cut Moscow out of the SWIFT international payment system.
Biden claimed the sanctions he announced, combined with the ones he imposed earlier in the week, are tougher than cutting Russia from SWIFT. He said the sanctions would “limit Russia’s ability to do business in dollars, euros, pounds and yen to be part of the global economy.”
“This is going to impose severe cost on the Russian economy, both immediately and over time. We have purposefully designed these sanctions to maximize a long-term impact on Russia and to minimize the impact on the United States and our allies,” Biden said.
The president reiterated that the US is not sending troops to Ukraine to fight Russia, but said he would order more troops to Eastern Europe. “Our forces are not going to Europe to fight in Ukraine but defend our NATO allies and reassure those allies in the east,” he said.
Biden said he authorized the “deployment of ground and air forces stationed in Europe to the eastern flank” and “additional US force capabilities to deploy to Germany as part of NATO’s response.”
Earlier this week, US troops and military hardware were sent to the Baltic nations as the US and NATO are reinforcing areas near Russia and Ukraine, what they call their “eastern flank.”
President Biden said that he has “no plans” to speak with Russian President Vladimir Putin at this time.
The Russian attack on Ukraine came amid soaring inflation and rising gas prices. US officials have said Americans should expect to feel some economic pain due to the US sanctions. Biden said he would try to “limit the pain the American people are feeling at the gas pump.”
The US/NATO has already showed its hand by taking direct military engagement off the table. We can move all the troops we want into Europe, but if we’re not going to actually DO anything with them, in the end it’s just another expensive deployment exercise. NATO nations know better than to risk being wrecked if they engage Russia, and the US is no position to be fighting a modern war halfway around the world against a really good opponent who can and will hit back with force.
I still have concerns about things ‘spilling over’, into something else… When dealing with nuclear countries…
Especially when we don’t have true neutrality. Baltic states, Poland, now Hungary, etc. pretty much all with Ukraine.
No one cares, least of all Russia, what the Baltic states, Poland and Hungary want. Those states will, of course, go along with whatever the US wants in terms of stationing NATO forces. Eventually, if that becomes a threat to Russia, Russia will deal with them like it did Ukraine. That’s what we have to worry about – a direct conflict between NATO and Russia that brings in the US. But that’s not immediately in the cards. Ukraine is a contained operation for now.
Well, I hope things turn out well. If you’re truly a student of history, you know that Russia and Hungary could be totally different 50 years from now. Quite often wars are fought and later regretted.
I do get that Russia is in a tough position, but to some extent the true security interests of Russia might change dramatically in the coming years.
And if just Germany starts spending, western Europe could suddenly be invading Russia again. It does look like Putin’s hand was forced, certainly pressured, in this case by the US.
If Germany doesn’t make a deal with Russia for that gas, it’s industry isn’t going to be able to create a military able to attack Russia. And of course, if Russia saw that coming, well…Germany becomes Ukraine. And then we get WWIII.
I try not to predict events out that far. Too much can change, as you say correctly.
Unlikely. By Biden’s statements, the US is essentially doing absolutely nothing about this situation. The sanctions he’s imposed have already been dismissed by the Russians and by objective observers of Russia’s economic situation. The troops they’re maneuvering around in Eastern Europe are toothless. As the operation in Ukraine has once again demonstrated, Russia has far more competence than NATO at this sort of thing.
Russia needs to quit bragging, imo. No one likes all this, “Russia is power. Russia is so great.”
It almost makes Russians look like they’re part of NATO, designed to terrify Estonia etc. into enslaving themselves to the CIA for protection.
Heh, have you heard how the US talks about itself literally every day and every speech any US politician makes? Ditto for Nato.
Well, yea. Russia wants to be like them? It’s better to have pride in civility, morality. Power then just serves those, if needed.
I’ve never once in my life bragged about how powerful any group I could be linked with is or was, (US, UK, whatever.)
“It’s better to have pride in civility, morality.” If you’ve followed any of Lavrov’s and Putin’s speeches, you’ll see they constantly emphasize exactly those qualities in comparison to what they see as US arrogance and lack of respect for international law or the rights of other countries and talking down to Russia and other countries.
If Biden has any smarts at all he will rebuild the relationship with Putin, trying to force Russia to “behave” will surely backfire and the consequences will be catastrophic. It’s obvious Russia is all in and has everything to loose along with the ability to take down any number of advisorys including the US when things get ugly. We are at Putins mercy when it comes to strategy, if Biden can’t see that it’s time for him to be replaced.
Well said….
Obsession is a disease…!