SULAIMANI (ESTA) — U.S. President Joe Biden said on Friday he told his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that a move on Ukraine will draw sanctions and an increased U.S. presence in Europe.
The two leaders exchanged warnings over Ukraine in a 50-minute call on Thursday to address Russian military actions, Reuters reported.
“I made clear to President Putin that if he makes any more moves, if he goes into Ukraine, we will have severe sanctions. We will increase our presence in Europe, with our NATO allies, and there will be a heavy price to pay for it,” Reuters quoted Biden as saying.
Biden further said Putin agreed to “three major conferences” next month with senior staff to help find a resolution and that he said he expected progress from those negotiations.
“I made it clear that it only could work if he de-escalated,” Biden added.
In response to a question whether Russia faces sanctions if it kept troops on the border, Biden said “I’m not going to negotiate here in public but we made it clear that he cannot – emphasize cannot – move on Ukraine.”
The Biden-Putin exchange set the stage for lower-level engagement between the countries that includes the U.S.-Russia security meeting on Jan. 9-10, followed by a Russia-NATO session on Jan. 12, and a broader conference including Moscow, Washington and other European countries on Jan. 13.
Russia’s deployment of troops near Ukraine has raised fears in the West that Moscow, which seized Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014 and has since backed separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine, may be poised for a new attack.
Russia has denied plans for an assault but says it could take unspecified military action if its security demands are not met.
Moscow, worried by what it says is the West’s re-arming of Ukraine, has said it wants legally-binding guarantees NATO will not expand further eastwards, and that certain offensive weapons will not be deployed to Ukraine or other neighboring countries.
The U.S. administration has promised economic sanctions if Russia attacks Ukraine. It says it cannot promise a sovereign state such as Ukraine would never join NATO.
