(Washington) Joe Biden seemed on Wednesday to accredit the idea of a probable next Russian “incursion” in Ukraine, attracting the ire of the Republican opposition in the United States who accuse him of having given Vladimir Putin a “green light” to invade the neighboring country.
Posted at 4:51 p.m.
Updated at 6:31 p.m.
While, from Kiev, his Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Moscow to choose the “peaceful path” two days from a new Russian-American diplomatic face-to-face, the President of the United States blew hot and cold.
“I think he still doesn’t want a full-scale war,” he said of his Russian counterpart during a press conference at the White House.
However, “he will test the West”. “I think he will return” to Ukraine one way or another, “he will have to do something”, he predicted, without further details.
Joe Biden acknowledged that the reaction and unity of Westerners would depend on the extent of what Moscow does.
‘If it’s a minor incursion’, NATO members may be divided on the scale of the response, but if the Russians ‘do what they can with the forces they have massed on the border , it will be a disaster for Russia,” he insisted. The situation could “spin out of control,” he said.
“Heavy” human losses
Republican tenors immediately accused the Democratic president of having resigned himself to such an incursion.
“Joe Biden’s impotence has emboldened Vladimir Putin, and now he has just given Putin the green light to invade Ukraine,” Senator Tom Cotton reacted on Twitter. “So if he only takes parts of Ukraine, our response will be less severe than if he annexes everything?” “, was also indignant his colleague Marco Rubio.
Faced with the growing outcry, the White House tried to clarify the presidential statement, assuring that it had only established a difference between a “military” offensive on the one hand and “non-military, paramilitary or cyber” on the other hand. ‘somewhere else. “Each of these actions will have its proportional response,” assured a spokesperson, Emily Horne, on Twitter.
Discreet about reprisals in the event of a “minor” incursion, Joe Biden has in any case firmly detailed the consequences of a major invasion.
“If they invade, they will pay for it, they will no longer be able to go through the banks, they will not be able to make transactions in dollars”, he warned, referring, in addition to these unprecedented sanctions against the economy Russian, the risk of “heavy” human losses on the battlefield.
The 46and President of the United States, whose first anniversary in the White House is tarnished, on the international scene, by this crisis with the flavor of the Cold War, has nevertheless extended his hand to Russia’s demands and has even said he is ready to a new high with Vladimir Putin.
Requirements “doomed to fail”
On the guarantee demanded by the Kremlin that Ukraine will never join NATO, he argued that in practice it was unlikely that Kiev would become a member of the Atlantic Alliance in the near future – even if by principle, it does not close its door.
On the promise that the West will not deploy strategic weapons on Ukrainian territory, “we can find a solution”, on the basis of reciprocity, he assured.
After a series of diplomatic talks in Europe last week, Moscow and Washington are due to try again on Friday to defuse the threat of a new conflict in Ukraine during a face-to-face meeting in Geneva between Antony Blinken and his Russian counterpart. Sergei Lavrov.
The head of the American diplomacy has already warned that he would not satisfy, during the meeting in Switzerland, the Russian request for a written commitment on his requirements.
And at the same time, the United States announced a new “defensive security” aid of 200 million dollars to Ukraine, in addition to the 450 million in military assistance already granted.
Russia has deployed tens of thousands of troops to the Ukrainian border, raising fears of an invasion. While denying any plan of attack, the Kremlin insists that a de-escalation requires written guarantees for its security.
“I strongly hope that we can stay on a diplomatic and peaceful path, but in the end it will be President Putin’s decision,” Antony Blinken, who met with President Volodymyr Zelensky and his chief of staff, told Kiev. diplomacy Dmytro Kouleba.
He reiterated that some Russian demands were “clearly, absolutely doomed to fail,” such as the formal commitment never to expand NATO to Ukraine.
After Kiev on Wednesday, the US Secretary of State is expected in Berlin on Thursday for talks with Germany, France and the United Kingdom.