President Biden will speak with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Tuesday morning in a high-stakes diplomatic effort to de-escalate a crisis over Ukraine as tens of thousands of Russian troops amass along the Ukrainian border, raising fears of an invasion.
In a video conference call scheduled for 10 a.m., the White House has said that Mr. Biden would “reaffirm the United States’ support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
The virtual meeting is a crucial test for Mr. Biden, as he tries to protect a democratic ally whose security U.S. officials have promised to defend and head off a major European security crisis.
Mr. Putin has complained that Ukraine is posing a threat to Russia through its relationship with the United States and European powers.
But Mr. Biden’s options are limited. He has no desire to send U.S. troops into battle on Ukraine’s behalf. Instead, Mr. Biden will warn Mr. Putin of potentially severe economic consequences, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on Monday. The official would not offer details, but analysts say a full-fledged invasion could trigger a U.S. move to cut Russia off from the international financial system, a drastic measure reserved for extreme cases.
It is unclear, however, whether such warnings will deter the Russian president, who has weathered years of Western sanctions over past acts of aggression, including Mr. Putin’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula and his longtime support for a pro-Russian separatist insurgency in Ukraine’s east.
Many analysts say that the fate of Ukraine matters far more to Mr. Putin, who often speaks about the former Soviet republic’s historical and ethnic ties to Russia, than it does to the Biden administration, whose stated goal has been to establish a more stable and predictable relationship with Russia.
But Mr. Putin, who raised similar alarms with a deployment near Ukraine this spring, has once again seized the attention of official Washington. And he will come to Tuesday’s meeting with demands of his own, including his insistence that NATO forswear the possibility of making Ukraine a member of the alliance. U.S. and NATO leaders have countered that Moscow cannot dictate the foreign policy choices of other nations.
U.S. officials believe that Mr. Putin has not decided whether to invade Ukraine. But the United States has disclosed intelligence showing that Russia’s military has developed a war plan that envisions as many as 175,000 troops pouring across Ukraine’s border — an invasion force that Ukraine’s military, despite U.S.-provided equipment and training, would have little ability to stop.
Even if he does not plan to invade, Mr. Putin may be wagering that Mr. Biden’s preoccupation with matters like the coronavirus and competition with China will make him inclined to strike a deal.
“Seen from Moscow, it appears that the Kremlin’s key objective in the current crisis is not to inflict a humiliating defeat on Kyiv or to take on the unsavory job of occupying Ukraine,” Maxim Samorukov, a fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, wrote in an analysis published on Monday.
“Rather it is aimed at persuading the West that Russia is prepared to start a full-scale war over Ukraine unless something is done about the existing and (in Putin’s eyes, at least) completely unacceptable state of affairs,” Mr. Samorukov added.
Complicating matters for Mr. Biden is uncertainly within European nations, whose economies stand to suffer from severed relations with Russia, about how to handle Mr. Putin’s newest threats. The Biden administration has been negotiating with European leaders in an effort to unify around punishments that could be inflicted on Russia for any new aggression.
Mr. Biden was also expected to speak with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky — a sign of American solidarity with the Ukrainian leader, whom Mr. Biden has pressed to take more forceful action against his country’s endemic corruption.
Biden officials said the call with Mr. Putin, like the meeting the two leaders held in Geneva in June, would cover several other issues, including nuclear arms control, cybersecurity and Iran’s nuclear program.
Source : Nytimes
