President Joe Biden stated on Friday that he will make it "very, very difficult" for Russian President Vladimir Putin to take military action in Ukraine and that fresh actions from his administration will prevent Russian aggression.
The president issued the calibrated warning to Putin in response to mounting concerns about a Russian military buildup near the Ukrainian border and the Kremlin's increasingly bellicose words. There are indications that the White House and the Kremlin are close to scheduling a meeting between Biden and Putin next week, NBS News reported.
Biden, Putin to address Ukraine issue in a phone meeting
Yuri Ushakov, Putin's foreign affairs adviser, told reporters on Friday that plans are in the works for a meeting between Putin and Biden in the coming days, adding that the date would be revealed after Moscow and Washington have finalized the specifics. The Russians claim that a date has been set, but they won't reveal when.
According to a source close to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was not permitted to talk publicly and speak about the condition of anonymity, Biden and Zelenskyy have tentatively agreed to converse next week.
Administration officials have "engaged with the prospect" of a Biden-Putin call, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki. A request for comment from the White House on the expected Zelenskyy call went unanswered.
Biden did not elaborate on the steps he was considering. However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed the US had threatened fresh sanctions at a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Sweden on Thursday. He did not go into detail about the possible consequences, but he implied that the attempt would be ineffective.
Per Washington Examiner, a senior administration official warned that an invasion would result in "high impact" sanctions on Russia. According to Yuri Ushakov, Biden and Putin will arrange a video conversation next week to address "the Ukraine issue" and other topics.
Russia wants deal to end NATO expansion
He stated that a date had been set, but it would not be made public until the content of the negotiations are established. Biden met with Putin for discussions in Geneva earlier this year. Russia is also looking for legal protection from NATO expansion. Ukraine has made a strong case for joining the security accord though many believe this is unlikely.
In a forthcoming phone meeting with President Joe Biden, Putin will urge that NATO not extend eastward to Ukraine, according to a Kremlin official. Putin's foreign affairs adviser said the two countries would announce the date of the conversation after all the details are worked out.
Russia is concerned about Ukraine's ambition to join NATO while the West is concerned about Russia's heightened army buildup near Ukraine. Any presence of NATO soldiers on Ukrainian land, Russia said, would be a "red line."
Putin would seek the drafting of a legally binding agreement during the conversation, according to Ushakov, that would "exclude any future NATO expansion eastward and the deployment of military systems that would threaten [them] on the borders of neighboring nations, including Ukraine."
Another reason not to let Ukraine join NATO, according to Ushakov, is a verbal agreement from Western leaders in the early 1990s that the organization would not expand eastward, which did not happen when other former-Soviet countries joined the alliance, as per Newsweek via MSN.
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