Dec 10, 2021: President Joe Biden on Thursday expressed “strong” support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia and called for a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Eastern Europe, while also promising US assistance against Moscow.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky issued a statement thanking Biden for his “strong support”, which included a phone call that lasted about an hour and a half. And the White House said Biden “reaffirmed the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
US President Joe Biden also called the leaders of NATO members Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, which are all in eastern Europe and deeply concerned by Russian military threats to Ukraine.
According to a White House statement, They “discussed Russia’s destabilizing military buildup along Ukraine’s border and the need for a united, ready, and resolute NATO stance for the collective defense of allies,”
Biden had already spent two hours talking to President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, warning him that if Russian troops now massed next to Ukraine launch a major attack, Moscow would then face US economic sanctions “like none he’s ever seen.”
Western and Ukrainian officials say they fear Russia – which has already annexed all of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014 and supported a separatist uprising in the east – is preparing for an even larger attack.
On the other hand, Russia says it has deployed troops on the border, numbering about 100,000, just out of fear that the former Soviet republic is becoming a NATO outpost.
Meanwhile, Ukraine is nowhere near joining NATO, although Washington has insisted that Russia should not veto Kiev’s intentions. Aside from the battlefields of eastern Ukraine, however, the conflict has turned into a wider struggle on the path to Eastern Europe, where for decades the Soviet Union dominated but now most countries are part of Western institutions.
At the same time, neither the United States nor any European power wants an open war with Russia over Ukraine, and Biden appears to want to return to negotiations.
Zelensky said that he and Biden “discussed possible formats for resolving the conflict” in eastern Ukraine, where the Russian-backed separatists have a self-declared state.
The senior US official said “we are of course prepared to talk to the Russians about this whole set of issues.”
Biden is working closely with major European powers, reaching out to leaders in Britain, France, Germany and Italy before and after his meeting with Putin on Tuesday.
The US president says the possibility of sending American troops into Ukraine’s fight is “not on the table.” But when it comes to the nine eastern flank NATO countries, Biden is promising the opposite.
US options for assisting Ukraine are limited, as the country is not in NATO and direct intervention would mean almost certain clashes with Russia.
Biden and European leaders have also agreed to impose tougher economic sanctions on Moscow over any further Russian attacks. Among them, the new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned of “consequences” to the Nordstream 2 pipeline, a controversial Russian project to supply natural gas to Germany.
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