Biden’s Ukraine remarks draw ire, dismay
U.S. fights fallout over talk of allies’ response in case of a ‘minor incursion’ by Russia.
WASHINGTON — The White House on Thursday sought to clarify remarks by President Biden about the consequences of a “minor incursion” by Russia into Ukraine that appeared to undermine weeks of intense U.S.-led diplomacy aimed at stopping an invasion of the former Soviet republic.
Officials in Kyiv reacted angrily to Biden’s comments, made at a news conference Wednesday, in which he appeared to wobble on backing Ukraine if it were attacked by its larger neighbor.
An array of U.S. lawmakers and world leaders also expressed dismay, with some saying the president appeared to offer his Russian counterpart a green light to launch a limited invasion.
The White House and Western leaders spent Thursday trying to clean up the damage, with Biden telling reporters he had been “absolutely clear with President Putin. He has no misunderstanding. If any — any — assembled Russian units move across the Ukrainian border, that is an invasion .... and it would be met with severe and coordinated economic response.”
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in London that “any kind of incursion into Ukraine, on any scale whatever, would be a disaster, not just for Ukraine, but for Russia.”
And NATO SecretaryGeneral Jens Stoltenberg on CNN called for “Russia not to use military force against Ukraine,” saying that Biden’s comments were not an invitation to invade.
The president of besieged Ukraine said that even a “minor” incursion into his country would be catastrophic.
“We want to remind the great powers that there are no ‘minor incursions’ and small nations,” Volodymyr
Zelensky said in Kyiv. “Just as there are no minor casualties and little grief from the loss of loved ones.”
His foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said a “minor invasion” would be like being “half-aggressive,” an illogical distinction.
Biden’s comments came in a nearly two-hour news conference at the White House, when he suggested U.S. allies were not aligned on how to confront Moscow’s aggression.
Tens of thousands of Russian troops are amassed at the Ukraine border, and top U.S. officials expect them to invade at any moment. Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued a series of ultimatums that Western governments are not willing to meet.
“It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do,” Biden told reporters Wednesday, adding that “there are differences in NATO as to what countries are willing to do depending on what happens.”
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (DN.H.), who went to Kyiv this week as part of a U.S. congressional delegation, said in a telephone conference with reporters on Thursday that Biden “misspoke.”
“An incursion is an incursion is an incursion,” she said.
Shaheen was among a bipartisan group of lawmakers that introduced legislation Thursday to make it easier for European countries to transfer U.S.-provided weapons to Ukraine.
As it stands, the U.S. technically provides only “defensive” armaments to Kyiv, not the offensive materiel it seeks. Ukraine would like to obtain batteries of Patriot missiles and other air-defense systems to help counter Russian air power.
It is unclear whether Biden, in fact, misspoke on Wednesday, or if he was reflecting the unease and resistance he is hearing from Europe.
Despite efforts by the administration — led by Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken — and top officials at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union to project a united front to Moscow, many of the United States’ transatlantic allies are less willing to unleash total fury against Moscow.
Many of the allies have extensive financial and trade ties with Russia, and are concerned, for example, that if the sanctions Washington is threatening to slap on Putin’s government were to include barring it from international banking transfer systems, scores of European companies would suffer.
Biden has probably heard European misgivings in private, but few would have expected him to allude to them publicly, especially not while he was noting that one of Putin’s objectives is to weaken and sow division within NATO and that Moscow will be held accountable if it invades.
The timing of Biden’s comments could hardly have been worse from the perspective of international diplomacy. They came as Blinken is marching through a series of intense talks with leaders of Ukraine in Kyiv; other European officials in Berlin; and, on Friday, a oneon-one with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Geneva.
A similar marathon was conducted last week by Blinken’s deputy, Wendy R. Sherman, who met with European, Russian and NATO officials. No progress was reported, although both Russian and Western officials seemed to want to show they were attempting dialogue.
Moscow, however, has refused to back down from its principal demand: an agreement by the U.S. and other member states to keep Ukraine out of NATO.
The U.S. and NATO have refused to comply, maintaining that global security and international law would be harmed if they ceded to the Kremlin’s demands. They also say that not forcefully pushing back on any Russian invasion would send a terrible message.
“If Russia invades and occupies Ukraine, what’s next?” Blinken said in Berlin. “Certainly, Russia’s efforts to turn its neighbors into puppet states, control their activities, and crack down on any spark of democratic expression will intensify.”
He added: “Once the principles of sovereignty and self-determination are thrown out, you revert to a world in which the rules we’ve shaped together over decades erode.”
Hoping to bolster its position, the administration announced a new set of sanctions Thursday against four Russian nationals it accused of working to destabilize the Ukrainian government. Blinken said Russian intelligence services are using “hybrid” tactics, including cyberespionage and the recruitment of Ukrainians to infiltrate sensitive Ukrainian agencies, to undermine that country’s unity and advance Russian interests.
Robert O’Brien, who was a national security advisor under former President Trump, said that for sanctions to work, they must target Putin and his wealthy inner circle.
“We ought to seize the soccer teams of his oligarchs and their yachts overseas and let them litigate for years to try and get those back,” he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt.
O’Brien said Biden’s comments on Wednesday were a “major mistake” that needs to be fixed.
“I think the White House is trying to walk it back so it’s not viewed as a green light for Putin to send his little green men or engage in cyberattacks, or even engage in limited conventional attacks against Ukraine,” he said. “That would be a disaster. And I don’t think that’s what the White House wanted.”