Biden warns Russia about Ukraine

President Joe Biden pledged on Friday that he would make “very, very difficult for Russian President Vladimir Putin to take military action in Ukraine, saying his administration is drafting a series of initiatives to reduce Russian aggression.

The president made this warning to President Putin, while there is growing concern about the increased presence of Russian forces on the border with Ukraine and increasingly aggressive rhetoric from the Kremlin.

What I'm doing is to compile a series of initiatives, which I believe will be more comprehensive and meaningful, to make it very, very difficult Putin to advance with actions that people worry he will undertake”, President Biden told reporters.

There are signs that the White House and the Kremlin are close to holding a conversation next week between President Biden and Russian President Putin.

President Biden gave no details of the actions he is considering. But, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who met with State Secretary Antony Blinken in Sweden on Thursday, said the United States has established the possibility of new sanctions. He did not elaborate on these possible sanctions, but suggested this effort would not be effective.

If we have new Hell-new ésanctions, we will respond to”, said Mr. Lavrov. “We cannot fail to respond to”.

Deep differences became evident during the Blinken-Laverov meeting. The Russian official accused the West of playing with fire “, ignoring Russia's stance on further NATO enlargement with former Soviet Union countries. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has demanded that Ukraine join NATO, which has preserved the possibility of membership but has not set a time period for it.

Secretary Blinken said this week that the United States “has made clear the Kremlin that we will respond decisively, including through a series of strong economic measures that we have not used in the past”.

He did not elaborate on the sanctions under consideration, but one of them could exclude Russia from the international financial transfer system SWIFT. The European Parliament adopted in April a resolution without legal power to exclude Russia from the SWIFT system if Russian forces enter Ukraine.

Such a move would have profound effects by putting Russian businesses out of the global financial system. Western allies are thought to have reviewed the company of such a step in 2014 and 2015 during previous escalations of tensions for Ukraine.

At that time, then Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the move would be equivalent to the “war envoy”. /voa