Joe Biden was under pressure from all sides on Friday to beef up his response to the lightning advance of Russian forces in Ukraine, calling an emergency meeting with NATO members.
The US leader met “with other NATO heads of state and government in an extraordinary virtual summit to discuss the security situation in and around Ukraine”, the presidency said.
The tenant of the White House, who for weeks tried to lead a united Western response to Russia’s maneuvers, led this meeting from the “Situation Room”, the ultra-secure room from which the American executive leads sensitive military interventions. The press does not have access to it.
“Outcast”
The president has already promised to deal a terrible blow to Russia’s finance and economy and to relegate Vladimir Putin to the rank of “pariah” on the international scene.
But several NATO member countries expressed Friday the wish to go further in the response against Moscow, at a time when the fighting has already won the Ukrainian capital Kiev.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Baltic countries felt that “more sanctions” against Moscow, targeting in particular “the close entourage” of Vladimir Putin, were necessary.
Berlin also announced Brussels’ intention to “severely sanction” the Russian president and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.
Asked Thursday why he had not taken this step himself after having assured ten days ago that all the sanctions “were ready” in the event of an invasion, Joe Biden kicked into touch.
Swift
In addition to calling for punishing Vladimir Putin, many voices are being raised to exclude Russia from the Swift interbank network, an essential cog in global finance. It is “an option” according to Joe Biden, but which the president has so far refused to take, stressing that certain European countries, such as Germany, are opposed to it for the moment.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, who met Joe Biden earlier this week, said he underlined Friday with his counterpart Antony Blinken “the need to use all the influence of the United States on certain hesitant European countries in order to exclude Russia from Swift”.
” Do more “
No speech on the Russian-Ukrainian crisis was currently on Joe Biden’s agenda on Friday.
The president, who is already suffering from an anemic popularity rating, will on the other hand have to justify his position on this issue to the Americans during his major general policy speech to Congress, scheduled for Tuesday evening.
If the Americans, tired of the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, are rather reluctant for the United States to play a major role in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, many elected officials, Democrats and Republicans, are calling on Mr. Biden to raise the tone.
“We can and must do more,” urged influential Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, head of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee and close to the president.
Several conservative lawmakers have insinuated that the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan, orchestrated by Joe Biden, served as an “invitation” to dictators around the world to act.
“The only language that Putin understands is firmness,” said conservative tenor Lindsey Graham, calling for “prosecuting” the Russian leader whom he described as a “war criminal”.
In the circles closest to Donald Trump, some took the opportunity to once again express doubts about the ability of Joe Biden, president almost octogenarian, to govern.