Biden considers sanctioning Putin directly in case of Ukraine invasion
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After the United Kingdom and NATO asserted there would be no foreign troops to aid Ukraine in case of a conflict, the United States joins the flock and says it is not sending its troops to help its ally in the face of the alleged Russian invasion.
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United States President Joe Biden on June 28, 2021
Russia will face harsh consequences in the case of an escalation with Ukraine, including personal sanctions that would target President Vladimir Putin, US President Joe Biden warned Tuesday.
"Yes, I would see that," Biden said when asked whether he would ever see sanctioning Putin directly in case of an invasion.
Russia is facing Western accusations of planning an invasion of its western neighbor despite Moscow dismissing these allegations.
According to Biden, the developments of Ukrainian-Russian tensions "depend entirely" on the decision of Vladimir Putin, who Biden sees is yet to make a final decision on whether or not to advance on Ukraine.
An escalation could change the world
Biden stressed that a military escalation between Moscow and Kyiv would have enormous consequences and change the world.
"There will be enormous consequences if [Putin] were to go in and invade ... [Ukraine] or a lot less than that as well, for Russia," Biden asserted.
The democrat highlighted that he was not only talking about economic and political consequences but rather "enormous consequences worldwide."
Biden claimed this would be "the largest" if Putin was t move in with all those forces. "It would be the largest invasion since World War II. It would change the world."
'No intention' to deploy the US, NATO forces in Ukraine
After NATO and the United Kingdom both affirmed that NATO forces would not be deployed in Ukraine in the case of conflict with Russia, the United States followed suit with Joe Biden reiterating by saying there is no intention to deploy US or NATO forces into Ukraine.
"We have no intention of putting American forces or NATO forces in Ukraine... There's not going to be any American forces moving into Ukraine," Biden said.
"NATO will not deploy NATO combat troops to Ukraine," the alliance's secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg told CNN earlier today.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson also highlighted that it was not likely that NATO deploys combat troops in Ukraine, which is not part of the western alliance. It is "not a likely prospect in the near term," he said.
Moscow has been demanding a written commitment that Ukraine would never be able to join NATO and that the alliance would not place any strategic military equipment in certain countries in the region surrounding Russia.
Russia had addressed the issue in the Geneva talks between the two parties, but the West seems "reluctant," the Kremlin previously stated.
