Biden’s speech today direct: President denies underestimating Putin in his announcement and ‘pariah’ Russia’s sanctions on Ukraine

President Biden strongly condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine In an address to the nation on Thursday afternoon, he announced severe sanctions against Vladimir Putin’s regime.

Putin is the aggressor. Putin chose this war. “Now he and his country will bear the consequences,” Biden said from the White House.

“We’ve been warning for weeks that this is going to happen, and now, it’s unfolding pretty much as we expected.

“We intentionally designed these sanctions to maximize the long-term impact on Russia and minimize the impact on the United States and our allies.”

Read the letter summary from The Independent Eric Garcia:

President Biden does not have many good options for dealing with Vladimir Putin, The Independent Andrew Buncombe writes in a new column.

Long ago, he ruled out sending US troops to help defend Ukraine. There is little appetite for such interference among the American public, and Biden was elected after promising to pull the country out of foreign wars, not start new ones.

As he told NBC News in an interview shortly before the Super Bowl, it wouldn’t help anyone having American forces anywhere near Russian forces. Russia has about 6,250 nuclear weapons, while the United States has 5,600.

He was asked in what circumstances he might send troops to rescue beleaguered Americans. “There is no [one],” he said. “This is a world war — when the Americans and the Russians start shooting at each other, we are in a very different world than we have ever been in.”

All this is wise and clever. But after excluding a loud US troop deployment – leaders often like to say that ‘all options’ are on the table – it meant that there were relatively few avenues for leverage available to the president.

President Joe Biden has announced his toughest actions yet targeting the Russian Federation and its leaders, but many Americans remain unclear about how specifically the US government is working to deter Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Sanctions are usually among the most difficult economic measures to describe, because they often focus on specific people and entities who do not make the same headlines as world leaders whose actions are often the driving force behind them.

Here is our explanation of what the United States announced today:

Two former presidents have issued strong condemnations of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine – days after a third called the dictator a “genius”.

George W. Bush and Barack Obama issued statements Thursday, hours after Russia began its attack on multiple targets inside Ukrainian territory, including its capital.

In his statement, which followed a strong rhetoric on the issue from his former Vice President Joe Biden, Obama accused Russia of launching a “blatant attack on the people of Ukraine, in violation of international law and basic principles of human decency.”

He continued: “Conscientious people around the world need to condemn Russia’s actions loud and clear and provide support to the Ukrainian people.

“And every American, regardless of party, should support President Biden’s efforts, in concert with our closest allies, to impose harsh sanctions on Russia — sanctions that exact a real price on Russia’s authoritarian elites.”

In a statement before Biden’s remarks, Mr. Bush called the attack “the most serious security crisis on the European continent since World War II” and said people should “stand in solidarity with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people as they seek freedom and the right to choose their own future.”

“I join the international community in condemning Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,” Mr. Bush said. “We cannot tolerate authoritarian bullying and the danger posed by Putin.”

Statements by previous leaders, particularly their words about Mr. Putin, were markedly different from those made by Trump earlier this week. The Independent Megan Sheets reports:

President Biden is reportedly considering moving US forces in Europe to the East in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine after insisting that the US military would not enter the conflict directly.

A senior US official revealed the alleged considerations to CNN Thursday morning as Biden convened a National Security Council meeting to discuss developments in the crisis.

The United States currently has nearly 90,000 troops on the continent, with Biden steadily increasing its focus in Eastern Europe in recent weeks as Russia reinforced its presence on the Ukrainian border.

The Independent Megan Sheets explains where the troops have been so far:

President Biden acknowledged a wave of disruption coming to gas prices in the United States and possibly other areas of the economy on Thursday, but vowed his administration would do “everything in its power” to minimize the impacts being felt by Americans.

He made the remarks during a short patriotic address and subsequent question-and-answer session with reporters at the White House, the first such address since Russian forces invaded Ukraine late Wednesday night.

“I will do everything in my power to reduce the pain the American people feel at the gas pump,” the president declared.

Gas prices across the country were already reacting to news of the invasion on Thursday. The average price of benchmark gas in the United States rose by eight cents against the dollar overnight, according to the AAA, and rose by 9 cents for mid-grade fuel.

The Independent John Bowden reports:

Assessments released earlier this week – before the Russian invasion of Ukraine – showed that more than half of Americans were unhappy with Biden’s handling of the crisis.

In a Gallup poll published Monday, just over a third of Americans said they approved of the White House’s response so far to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine that culminated late Wednesday night with an all-out invasion of the eastern European country.

36 percent of Americans said Joe Biden was doing well in dealing with the “situation with Russia,” a number that could drop further in the coming days after it became clear that Biden and other Western leaders failed to persuade Vladimir Putin to invade. .

Fifty-five percent disapprove of the president’s handling of Ukraine, and according to a Gallup poll, the president’s overall approval rating among Democrats is now at nearly the lowest point in his presidency to date; It’s currently at 79 percent, down 3 points in a month.

President Biden insisted he never underestimated Vladimir Putin when his earlier comments about the leader were raised during a heated question-and-answer session after his remarks about the invasion on Thursday.

Mr. Biden was asked by Fox News reporter Peter Dossey: “Have you underestimated Putin, and are you still going to call him the way you did in the summer as a ‘worthy opponent’?” “

Biden responded by saying that Mr. Doshi was misrepresenting his words. “By the time he was–I made it clear he was an opponent and I said he deserved,” he said. I did not underestimate him.

‘And I had read most of everything he wrote, had I read–‘ he began to investigate before saying, ‘I am not a wise man.’

“I heard his speech, which took him almost hours to talk about why he was going to Ukraine,” he continued. “He has much bigger ambitions than Ukraine. He wants, in fact, to re-establish the former Soviet Union. That’s what this is about. And I think his ambitions are totally at odds with where the rest of the world has come.”

The Independent Megan Sheets and John Bowden report:

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization, has expressed his sadness and “grave concern” for the health of people in Ukraine amid the Russian invasion.

In a statement posted on Twitter, he wrote: “The health system must continue to operate to provide people with basic care on all health issues.

International humanitarian law calls for the protection of health facilities, personnel, patients, transport and supplies. As part of the WHO’s role in documenting attacks on health, we will continue to monitor and report on these incidents.

“I am calling for peace and sustainable access to deliver humanitarian assistance in Ukraine. I have disbursed another $3.5 million from the WHO’s Emergency Fund for Emergencies to procure and deliver urgent medical supplies. This adds to the supplies we previously placed in health facilities.”

Foreign Minister Anthony Blinken gave an update on the situation in Ukraine ahead of a special meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) on Thursday, warning that “all evidence indicates that Russia intends to encircle and threaten Kiev.”

“We believe that Moscow has developed plans to inflict large-scale – and possibly worse – human rights abuses on the Ukrainian people,” he added.

Mr. Blinken called Russia’s actions “an affront to democracy, human rights and human decency”.

“The members of this organization and the entire international community now clearly see Russia’s complete abandonment of the commitments it made to the world – and we will never forget,” he said.