Posted Feb 22 2022 at 18:02
Vladimir Putin’s speech on Monday evening disconcerted American diplomacy… and revealed its weaknesses. In the hours following the Russian president’s announcement that he recognized Ukraine’s separatist provinces, US officials stalled. “The movement of Russian troops in the Donbass does not in itself constitute a new stage, justified one of them during a conversation with the press. Russia has had forces in the Donbas region for eight years.”
The whole question then was whether or not Moscow’s position constituted an invasion, and therefore whether Washington should apply its full arsenal of sanctions in this case. After long hours of hesitation, on the morning of Tuesday, the White House finally seemed to have decided and one of the main national security advisers, Jonathan Finer, released on CNN that this was indeed a ” beginning of invasion”, promising to beef up the American response.
The targeted Donbass
For several days, Washington has adopted a delicate posture, between firmness and the desire to open the way to diplomacy. The White House wants to coordinate with its allies before imposing any new sanction, while some had complained about the lack of dialogue, in the Afghan file for example. From the Russian announcements, Joe Biden spoke by telephone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. They spoke of coordination in sanctions and possible consequences.
In the process, he signed an executive order prohibiting any American company, or any American national, from trading or investing in the separatist regions. Those who do not respect this decree expose themselves to sanctions. White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki also said that other sanctions would follow, different from those that could be adopted in the event of an invasion of Ukraine. Joe Biden was to speak in the evening and specify these measures.
Russian banks in the sights
The US administration repeated throughout the weekend that a wide range of additional sanctions was ready to be implemented, without revealing the details. The tracks previously mentioned included the possibility of excluding Russia from the Swift system, through which international payments pass, or of hitting the major Russian banks wholly or partly owned by the State, such as Sberbank, VTB or Gazprombank. . The whole difficulty lies in the adoption of sanctions that would be effective against Russia, while not weakening the United States themselves or their allies, particularly on the energy issue.
In the meantime, the State Department on Monday transferred all its personnel from Ukraine to Poland and denounced a speech by Vladimir Putin which “prepares the Russian people for war”.
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