- Biden announced a second round of sanctions against Russia, including a ban on some U.S. exports.
- Biden said removing Russia from the SWIFT financial system is still on the table.
- Biden denounced Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as “without provocation, without justification.”
WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden vowed Thursday to turn Russian President Vladimir Putin into “a pariah” on the world stage in retaliation for Russia’s pre-dawn invasion of Ukraine.
Speaking just hours after Russia began a large-scale military attack on its democratic neighbor, Biden announced a new round of sanctions that he said would inflict harm to Russia for starting a war “without provocation, without justification, without necessity.”
“Putin’s aggression against Ukraine will end up costing Russia dearly – economically and strategically,” Biden said in remarks from the White House. “We will make sure that Putin will be a pariah on the international stage.”
Biden forcefully condemned the invasion, calling it “a premeditated” attack that will cause widespread human suffering.
Putin has been planning the assault for months, rejecting “all good-faith efforts” by world leaders to resolve the crisis without bloodshed, Biden said.
“Putin is the aggressor,” he said. “Putin chose this war.”
New wave of U.S. sanctions
Biden announced a second round of sanctions against Russia, including a ban on some key U.S. exports to that country. He did not specify which exports would be prohibited, but administration officials have said that cutting off Russia’s supply of semiconductors was under consideration.
That would mean Russia’s ability to obtain high-tech components would be severely restricted because virtually all semiconductors are designed with U.S. software and parts. The impact could extend to machine tools, smartphones, game consoles, tablets and televisions.
“We have purposely designed these sanctions to maximize a long-term impact on Russia and to minimize impact on the United States and our allies,” Biden said.
Biden said he also is authorizing additional U.S. force capabilities to deploy to Germany as part of NATO’s response to bolster forces on the military alliance’s eastern flank.
Biden said removing Russia from the international SWIFT financial system is still on the table but that European allies had resisted that step. The SWIFT financial system shifts money between banks around the world. Removing Russia would block Moscow from most international financial transactions, including profits from oil and gas production that are the lifeblood of Russia’s economy.
While Europe isn’t ready to cut Russia out of SWIFT, the sanctions they have agreed to impose “exceed anything that’s ever been done,” Biden said. “They are profound sanctions.”
Europe, U.S. coordinated on penalties
Philippe Étienne, French ambassador to the United States, said Thursday that two factors drove the sanctions package against Russia: unity and massive penalties that would hurt Russia financially.
“First unity, because it makes it politically and technically stronger,” he said in an interview on CNN. “Second, to have a maximum effect of sanctions on Russia, while mitigating or minimizing the effects on our economies.”
Étienne did not say why Europe was reluctant to exclude Russia from SWIFT but said the U.S. and European countries worked together for weeks to hash out an agreement on sanctions.
“And now we’re adopting them very, very quickly in record rapidity,” he said.
Deputy National Security Advisor Daleep Singh said the sanctions “will isolate Russia from the global financial system, shut down its access to cutting-edge technology and undercut Putin’s strategic ambitions to diversify and modernize his economy.”
Singh said the export restrictions work undermine Russia’s military capabilities, as well as its aerospace and maritime sectors.
“You will begin to see a chilling effect take hold in Russia as those imports are denied,” he said.
Dozens of casualties reported in early hours
Biden’s speech on Thursday came less than 24 hours after Putin launched a predawn military attack, which a U.S. military official said was designed to overthrow the country’s government and to install a Kremlin-backed one.
Conflict in the region has been simmering for months. About 190,000 Russian troops had surrounded Ukraine in recent weeks, and the U.S. and other western nations have been beefing up reinforcements on NATO’s eastern flank.
Putin announced a major invasion of Ukraine during a public address broadcast before dawn in eastern Europe, as the Russian attack began with a barrage of missiles and bombers.
Fighting had begun in both the north and south of Ukraine, according to its defense ministry, and Russian troops had attempted to seize control of Chernobyl, the site of the 1986 meltdown seen as one of the biggest nuclear disasters in history.
Oleksii Arestovich, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said at least 40 people had been killed and dozens others wounded in the attack so far.
The U.S. and western allies have been warning of an imminent invasion for weeks, even as they pursued diplomatic solutions to resolve the conflict.
Putin has claimed that the invasion was necessary to protect Russians and to defend two territories held by Russian-backed separatists, which the Kremlin recognized as “independent” republics earlier this week. Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in Ukraine in 2014.
Ukraine has denied that it has tried to retake those territories. Putin has long been alarmed by the prospect of Ukraine, a pro-Western democracy, joining NATO, a military alliance made up mostly of European countries along with the United States and Canada.
Will US help Ukraine?:American troops bolster NATO in Europe
Putin has demanded that Ukraine never enter NATO in an attempt to stave off western influence creeping along Russia’s border. The Russian president also has denied Ukraine’s right to exist, saying it should be part of Russia.
With hope fading for a diplomatic solution, the U.S. and other Western powers announced new sanctions earlier this meant to hamper Russia’s economy and powerful people close to Putin.
Calling Russia’s invasion of Ukraine “a flagrant violation of international law,” Biden said Tuesday that the country was being cut off from western financing and that the U.S. had worked with Germany to prevent operations on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
Sanctions also targeted a handful of Russian oligarchs in Putin’s inner circle.
Ukraine invasion:Russia may retaliate against Europe by halting natural gas exports — if Europe doesn’t do it first
At that time, Biden also warned of further sanctions should Russia continue its assault. On Thursday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the United Kingdom was freezing out Russian banks from the U.K.’s financial system.
Contributing: Courtney Subramanian, Joey Garrison and Rebecca Morin.
