West urged to clarify sanction threats
KYIV, Ukraine — Western officials need to announce what steps they will take if Russia launches a major military attack against Ukraine, the country’s foreign minister urged, as the United States and European Union weigh potential sanctions and other measures.
Dmytro Kuleba said that the lack of details “in Washington, London and Brussels” could lead Russian officials to doubt the seriousness of the West’s promise to act in response to a possible Russian invasion.
“They’ll think we’re just ‘blah blah blah,’ ” Kuleba said in an interview Friday.
Kuleba’s remarks came just hours after Russia issued sweeping demands to the United States and NATO to halt any eastward expansion and effectively declaring all former Soviet republics — including Ukraine — off limits to Western military alliances or cooperation.
NATO has previously said Russia has no sway over its decisions. A senior Biden administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to address sensitive diplomacy, described some of Russia’s demands as “unacceptable” to Washington and said Moscow “knows that.”
U.S. intelligence has raised alarms that Russia could be planning a multifront offensive into Ukraine, according to United States officials and an intelligence document obtained by the Washington Post. Already, approximately 100,000 Russian troops and military hardware are massed near Ukraine’s border and in the Crimea Peninsula, which Russia invaded and annexed in 2014.
That same year, Russianbacked separatists took up arms in eastern Ukraine, launching an ongoing conflict that has claimed about 14,000 lives.
President Joe Biden, who held a video call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Dec. 7, warned of “severe consequences” in response to any possible Russian military moves into Ukraine.
EU leaders on Thursday warned of “massive consequences and severe cost” in the event of “further aggression against Ukraine” by Russia. But neither Biden nor the EU statement offer specifics on what Russia could face.
Members of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s administration have conducted a series of high-level meetings with Western officials in an effort to mobilize support for a collective response to a possible Russian offensive. Kuleba returned from Brussels on Thursday.
“It’s like in my childhood, when my mother would come to me and say that, ‘Something bad will happen if you do not go to bed now,’ ” Kuleba told the
Post in Kyiv. “And I was afraid a couple of times, and then I asked, ‘But what exactly?’ ”
Kuleba said that Ukrainian officials were pushing Western allies to adapt a sanctions package that would cut Moscow off from the SWIFT international bank transfer system, which would be a major blow to businesses and wealthy Russians including oligarchs with Kremlin ties.
Also pushed by Ukraine: blocking Russia’s ability to raise money on the international sovereign debt market and sanctions on the assets of members of Putin’s inner circle.
“What I know from my informal conversations [with Western officials] is that they are discussing the nuclear option of disconnecting Russia from SWIFT,” Kuleba said. “That would be huge.”
Kuleba also appealed for the United States and possibly Britain “act on their own” if lessstrict measures are proposed by the EU, which has closer trade and energy ties with Russia.
Washington and London should not “water down” the sanctions to accommodate the EU, he said.
Ukrainian authorities have also lobbied for additional military aid from Western countries.
A Pentagon spokesman, Marine Lt. Col. Anton T. Semelroth, said Friday that the United States has delivered to Ukraine in the past 65 days military equipment including 180 Javelin missiles and 30 command launch units for them, as well as two Island-class patrol boats.
The shipments over the last 65 days had been planned for some time, however, before the recent Russian military buildup at the Ukrainian border.
Starting with the Trump administration, Washington has provided Kyiv with lethal defensive weapons, such as Javelin antitank missiles. In September, the Biden administration approved $60 million in assistance.
“If I see indicators that the United States is holding something up because they are not willing to irritate Russia, I will get immediately concerned because I think it’s a completely wrong and an ill-advised line to take,” Kuleba said. “This hasn’t been the case so far.”
But Ukrainian authorities are also asking what will happen if severe economic sanctions and strong backing from Ukraine’s Western allies fail to deter Russia from launching a full-scale attack.
Putin, Kuleba said, could weigh the risks and benefits and, in the end, decide it is worth it “to try to destroy or take over Ukraine, or to cut it in half.”
Kuleba asked then what Ukraine and its allies next step would be. “That is the question that really makes me concerned,” Kuleba said. “And I don’t have the answer.”