Biden: US and allies will give decisive response if Russia continues to invade Ukraine

Joe Biden. Vladimir Zelensky (archive photo) & nbsp; Biden: US and allies will give decisive response if Russia continues invasion of Ukraine

The conversation between Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky was devoted to the discussion of ways to defuse the tensions caused by the concentration of Russian troops near the Ukrainian borders.

US President Joe Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday that the United States and its allies would give a “decisive response” if Russia continued to invade Ukraine.

This is stated in a White House statement issued by Press Secretary Jen Psaki.

“President Biden has made it clear that the United States and its allies and partners will give a firm response if Russia continues to invade Ukraine,” Psaki said in a statement following a telephone conversation between the two. presidents.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed his gratitude to the US President for his unwavering support.

The Ukrainian president tweeted that during the conversation, joint actions aimed at keeping peace in Europe and preventing further escalation of the conflict had been discussed.

He also noted that the conversation confirmed the special nature of US-Ukrainian relations.

The fact that the telephone conversation between Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelensky was scheduled for Sunday evening Kyiv time was reported earlier on Sunday by Radio Liberty, citing press spokesman Sergei Nikiforov, the press secretary to the President of Ukraine .

As previously stated, the purpose of the conversation was to discuss ways to ease the tension caused by the concentration of Russian troops near Ukraine’s eastern borders.

On Friday, a White House spokesperson announced the next conversation between the two presidents. It happened a day after Biden had telephone conversations with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Biden has failed to make significant progress in persuading Putin to withdraw some 100,000 troops stationed along the Ukrainian border, although US officials do not believe Putin made the decision to invade a neighboring country.

In a 50-minute phone call Thursday between the American and Russian leaders, Biden again warned Putin that the United States and its Western allies would impose significant economic sanctions on Moscow if Putin invaded Ukraine, although Biden had ruled out a military response.

On December 31, during New Years events in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden told reporters that further aggressive actions by Russia against Ukraine would result in severe sanctions that would deal a severe blow to the Russian economy.

“We have made it clear to President Putin that if he takes further action, invades Ukraine, then we will apply severe sanctions. We will increase our presence in Europe with our NATO allies, and this will be (for Russia) a high price that it will have to pay ”, underlined the head of the White House.

The Kremlin, in turn, said that during the conversation, Putin told Biden that tough new sanctions could lead to a complete breakdown in relations between Washington and Moscow.

Biden also said that in telephone conversations with the Russian leader on December 30, it was again agreed to hold US-Russian talks in Geneva on January 9 and 10, as well as a NATO-Russia Council meeting on January 12. January in Brussels and the OSCE. talks on January 13.

On the last day of the outgoing year, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken spoke by telephone with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio and Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly. It was about the readiness of the Allies to give a firm response to a possible new Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“The North Atlantic Alliance is ready for a constructive dialogue with Russia, while strengthening its unity to deter further (Russian) aggressions against Ukraine,” the US Foreign Office said in a statement.

The United States is supplying Kiev with small arms and ammunition, as well as Javelin missiles, which it claims should be used exclusively for defense purposes.

“President Biden [in a conversation with Putin] reiterated that meaningful progress in these dialogues can only happen through de-escalation, not escalation, ”White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said.

In the next talks, Russia will demand that NATO, the military alliance formed after World War II, reject Ukraine’s membership and reduce its presence in central and eastern Europe. The White House declined to comment on details of the closed-door talks.

Recall that after a December 30 telephone conversation between Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin, a group of 24 former American national security officers and experts on Russia (which includes former officials of the Obama administration, Bush and Clinton) have issued a statement calling on the White House chief to immediately and publicly draw up a list of severe sanctions Russia will face if the Kremlin launches further aggression against Ukraine.

As reported by The Associated Press, the declaration was signed by several former US ambassadors, including former ambassadors to Russia: Michael McFaul and Alexander Vershbow and former ambassadors to Ukraine: Stephen Pifer and John Herbst.