The Biden administration said it is still debating on Tuesday morning what package of sanctions to unleash against Vladimir V. Putin, his friends and Russia’s financial system. But all the early indications suggested that officials planned to leave some in reserve in hopes of preventing a far larger attack on Ukraine that could cause tens of thousands of casualties.
Early Tuesday morning, Jon Finer, Mr. Biden’s deputy national security adviser, said that Russia’s forces had begun to move into Ukraine, declaring on CNN that “an invasion is an invasion, and that is what is underway.”
The choice of the word “invasion” was significant. That was the trigger for sanctions, and Mr. Biden angered the Ukrainian leadership when he suggested in a news conference that there might be lesser penalties for a “minor incursion.” Now that Mr. Putin has ordered forces into Eastern Ukraine, the administration, in its choice of words, is making clear that there is nothing minor about the operation.
Understand Russia’s Relationship With the West
The tension between the regions is growing and Russian President Vladimir Putin is increasingly willing to take geopolitical risks and assert his demands.
- Competing for Influence: For months, the threat of confrontation has been growing in a stretch of Europe from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea.
- Threat of Invasion: As the Russian military builds its presence near Ukraine, Western nations are seeking to avert a worsening of the situation.
- Energy Politics: Europe is a huge customer of Russia’s fossil fuels. The rising tensions in Ukraine are driving fears of a midwinter cutoff.
- Migrant Crisis: As people gathered on the eastern border of the European Union, Russia's uneasy alliance with Belarus triggered additional friction.
- Militarizing Society: With a “youth army” and initiatives promoting patriotism, the Russian government is pushing the idea that a fight might be coming.
But that still leaves open the question of how to calibrate the sanctions — because so far there have been no mass casualties. Mr. Finer quickly indicated that the administration could hold back some of its promised punishments in the hopes of deterring further, far more violent aggression by Mr. Putin aimed at taking the rest of the country.
“We’ve always envisioned waves of sanctions that would unfold over time in response to steps Russia actually takes not just statements that they make,” Mr. Finer said. “We’ve always said we’re going to watch the situation on the ground and have a swift and severe response.”
Overnight, Mr. Biden and his aides were consulting with allies, so that their response would be coordinated. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson pointed toward the direction they were leaning when he told Parliament on Tuesday that “this is the first tranche, the first barrage of what we are prepared to do and we hold further sanctions at readiness to be deployed along side the United States and European Union if the situation escalates still further.”
It is one of those situations where Mr. Biden has no truly good choices. If his response seems too mild, he will send the message to Mr. Putin that the world is not going to make him pay a big price for sending troops into the Russian-speaking eastern part of the country — replicating what happened when the Russian leader annexed Crimea in 2014. If he implements all of the sanctions, Mr. Putin may conclude that there is nothing left to keep him from attacking the rest of the country.
Mr. Biden discussed this dilemma at a news conference in January. He said that if an attack was “something significantly short of a significant invasion” he would impose sanctions, but only to the point that European allies go along. And several of those allies have more at stake, including their gas supplies. “I got to make sure everybody is on the same page as we move along,’’ Mr. Biden said.
That was the news conference where he used the phrase “minor incursions,” and then had to backtrack, promising sanctions if one Russian soldier goes into Ukraine. But his words were revealing about how he thinks about the problem. If “there’s Russian forces crossing the border, killing Ukrainian fighter, et cetera — I think that changes everything.”
Mr. Biden also said during that news conference that “the most important thing to do: Big nations can’t bluff,” a phrase that now leaves him open to criticism after saying for weeks that even one soldier crossing the border into Ukraine would trigger an entire barrage of sanctions against Russia.
February 22, 2022 at 09:59PM
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/world/europe/us-russia-sanctions.html
White House Weighs How Hard to Hit Putin With Sanctions - The New York Times
https://news.google.com/search?q=hard&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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