World

Biden talks tough as US intelligence finds Russia planning Ukraine offensive

President Joe Biden pledged Friday to make it “very, very difficult” for Russia’s Vladimir Putin to take military action in Ukraine as US intelligence officials determined that Russian planning is underway for a possible military offensive that could begin as soon as early 2022.

The new intelligence finding estimates that the Russians are planning to deploy an estimated 175,000 troops and almost half of them are already deployed along various points near Ukraine’s border, according to a Biden administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the finding.

For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
It comes as Russia has picked up its demands on Biden to guarantee that Ukraine will not be allowed to join the NATO alliance.

The official added that the plans call for the movement of 100 battalion tactical groups along with armor, artillery, and equipment.

Intelligence officials also have seen an uptick in Russian propaganda efforts through the use of proxies and media outlets to denigrate Ukraine and NATO ahead of a potential invasion, the official said.

Asked about the intelligence finding as he set out for the presidential retreat at Camp David on Friday evening, Biden reiterated his concerns about Russian provocations.

“We’ve been aware of Russia’s actions for a long time and my expectation is we’re gonna have a long discussion with Putin,” Biden said.

The risks of such a gambit for Putin, if he actually went through with an invasion, would be enormous.

US officials and former US diplomats say while Putin clearly is laying the groundwork for a possible invasion, Ukraine’s military is better armed and prepared today than in past years, and the sanctions threatened by the West would do serious damage to Russia’s economy. It remains unclear if Putin intends to go through with what would be a risky offensive, they say.

Earlier Friday, Biden pledged to make it “very, very difficult” for Putin to take military action in Ukraine and said new initiatives coming from his administration are intended to deter Russian aggression.

“What I am doing is putting together what I believe to be will be the most comprehensive and meaningful set of initiatives to make it very, very difficult for Mr. Putin to go ahead and do what people are worried he may do,” Biden told reporters.

The Kremlin said on Friday that Putin would seek binding guarantees precluding NATO’s expansion to Ukraine during the call with Biden. But Biden sought to head off the demand.

“I don’t accept anyone’s red line,” Biden said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials also warned that Russia could invade next month. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told lawmakers on Friday that the number of Russian troops near Ukraine and in Russia-annexed Crimea is estimated at 94,300, warning that a “large-scale escalation” is possible in January.

US intelligence officials estimate closer to 70,000 troops are deployed near the border, according to an unclassified intelligence document obtained Friday by The Associated Press.

The intelligence findings were first reported by The Washington Post.

There are signs that the White House and Kremlin are close to arranging a conversation next week between Biden and Putin. Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters on Friday that arrangements have been made for a Putin-Biden call in the coming days, adding that the date will be announced after Moscow and Washington finalize details. The Russians say a date has been agreed upon, but declined to say when.
Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have also tentatively agreed to have a call next week, according to a person close to the Ukrainian president who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said administration officials have “engaged in the possibility” of a Biden-Putin call. White House officials did not respond to a request for comment on the expected Zelenskyy call.

“It certainly would be an opportunity to discuss our serious concerns about the bellicose rhetoric, about the military buildup that we’re seeing on the border of Ukraine,” Psaki said of a potential Biden-Putin call.

Biden did not detail what actions he was weighing. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who met Thursday with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Sweden, said the US has threatened new sanctions. He did not detail the potential sanctions but suggested the effort would not be effective.

“If the new ‘sanctions from hell’ come, we will respond,” Lavrov said. “We can’t fail to respond.”

Psaki said the administration would look to coordinate with European allies if it moved forward with sanctions. She noted that bitter memories of Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that had been under Ukraine’s control since 1954, are front of mind as the White House considers the way forward.

“We know what President Putin has done in the past,” Psaki said. “We see that he is putting in place the capacity to take action in short order.”

Deep differences were on display during the Blinken-Lavrov meeting, with the Russia official charging the West was “playing with fire” by denying Russia a say in any further NATO expansion into countries of the former Soviet Union. Zelenskyy has pushed for Ukraine to join the alliance, which holds out the promise of membership but hasn’t set a a timeline.

Blinken this week said the US has “made it clear to the Kremlin that we will respond resolutely, including with a range of high-impact economic measures that we’ve refrained from using in the past.”
He did not detail what sanctions were being weighed, but one potentially could be to cut off Russia from the SWIFT system of international payments. The European Union’s Parliament approved a non-binding resolution in April to cut off Russia from SWIFT — the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications — if its troops entered Ukraine.

Such a move would go far toward blocking Russian businesses from the global financial system. Western allies reportedly considered such a step in 2014 and 2015, during earlier Russian-led escalations of tensions over Ukraine.

Then-Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said it would be tantamount to “a declaration of war.”

But some US government officials say Putin also could be seeking attention and concessions from Biden and other Western leaders, using the military escalation to force Russia back into a central role in world affairs as it had in the days of the Soviet Union.

“They are seriously envious for superpower status and … the parity to the United States that existed during the Cold War. That’s what this is all about,” said John Herbst, a former US ambassador to Ukraine.

An invasion is possible, but more likely, “they provoke a crisis, they get concessions from us, and then they reduce the crisis. Right? And that, I think, is probably their objective,” Herbst said on Friday.

World

Republican lawmakers press Biden to send cluster bombs to Ukraine: Letter

Four Republican members of Congress urged US President Joe Biden to send cluster munitions to Ukraine, alleging in a Tuesday letter to the White House that the administration fears doing so would be seen as an escalation by Russia.

Ukraine is seeking the MK-20, an air-delivered cluster bomb, to release its individual explosives from drones, and 155 mm artillery cluster shells, Reuters reported earlier this month. Kyiv had urged members of Congress to press the White House to approve sending the weapons.

For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.

The letter criticized Biden for “reluctance to provide Ukraine the right type and amount of long-range fires and maneuver capability to create” a breakthrough against Russian forces.

The letter was signed by Jim Risch, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Roger Wicker, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Mike McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Mike Rogers the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

It urged Biden to send the Dual-Purpose Conventional Improved Munitions (DPICM) found in several types of US munitions, including 155-millimeter artillery, GMLRS and ATACMS.

It is by no means certain the Biden administration would sign off on a transfer.

Cluster munitions, banned by more than 120 countries, normally release large numbers of smaller bomblets that can kill indiscriminately over a wide area, threatening civilians.

World

US renews opposition to Assad normalization after UAE trip

The United States on Tuesday stood firm against nations normalizing relations with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after he paid his second visit in as many years to the United Arab Emirates, a close US partner.

“We will not normalize with the Assad regime nor will we encourage others absent authentic and enduring progress towards a political resolution,” State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters.

For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.

“We continue to urge anybody engaging with Damascus to consider sincerely and thoroughly how their engagements can help provide for Syrians in need no matter where they live,” he said. UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan received Assad on Sunday and told him that it was time for Syria to return to the Arab fold.

A growing number of nations have been repairing relations with Assad, believing he has effectively won in a brutal war that broke out in 2011.The United States under domestic law rules out any assistance for reconstruction in Assad-ruled Syria without accountability for abuses.

Assad, helped by Russian airpower, has largely restored control over Syria after the conflict that has killed half a million people, displaced half the country’s pre-war population and saw the rise of the ISIS.

Along with Arab states, neighboring Turkey — which has backed rebels fighting Assad — has recently moved to repair relations.

World

Xi and Putin agree to bolster ties in politics, energy, trade: Everything to know

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping concluded on Tuesday rounds of talks, culminating in the signing of a joint declaration stating that the two countries will strengthen their “strategic cooperation” on the international stage in the fields of politics, energy, economy, trade, and military.

After the talks, Putin and Xi held a press conference at which the Russian president said the signed joint declaration reflects the nature of Sino-Russian relations which are “at the highest level in all [their] history”. He added that the two countries “share solid bonds of neighborly relations, mutual support and assistance, and friendship between our peoples.”

Xi said: “Russian-Chinese relations are demonstrating healthy and stable development dynamics. Political mutual trust between our countries is being built up, shared interests are multiplying, our peoples are getting closer.”

He added: “Cooperation in the trade-and-economic, investment, energy, cultural, humanitarian, and inter-regional dimensions is developing.”

Putin said the joint statement of the planned expansion in key economic cooperation areas until 2030 “sets the task of increasing the volume of trade in goods and services multiple times over, deepening ties in eight strategic areas, primarily finance, industrial manufacturing and technology, as well as transport and logistics.”

The declaration stressed that the boosting of ties between Russia and China was “independent of foreign influence.”

"The sides stress that efforts toward strengthening and deepening Russian-Chinese relations of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation entering a new era are a strategic choice independent from external influence,” the document reads according to the text published by the Kremlin.

Other dimensions of the joint declaration are:

Ukraine war

Russia and China criticized the role being played by the West (US and NATO) in the Ukraine war.

“The two sides point out that to settle the Ukraine crisis, the legitimate security concerns of all countries must be respected, bloc confrontation should be prevented and fanning the flames avoided. The two sides stress that responsible dialogue is the best way for appropriate solutions,” according to the text published by the Kremlin.

“We believe that many of the provisions of the peace plan put forward by China are consonant with Russian approaches and can be taken as the basis for a peaceful settlement when they are ready for that in the West and in Kyiv. However, so far we see no such readiness from their side,” Putin said.

Xi stressed that China maintained an “impartial position” on the conflict.

Energy

Moscow and Beijing will “jointly protect international energy security (including critical cross-border infrastructure) and stability of chains of production and supplies of energy products,” according to the Kremlin’s text.

The two countries will also “facilitate fair energy transitions and low-carbon development with consideration of the principle of technology neutrality and jointly contribute to long-term, healthy and stable development of the global energy market.”

Putin said Russia stood ready to ramp up oil and gas supplies to meet China’s growing demand for energy resources, highlighting that China is Russia’s largest oil buyer. “Russian business is able to meet the growing demand from the Chinese economy for energy resources, both as part of current projects and those that are currently being negotiated,” he said.

“By 2030, the total volume of gas supplies will be at least 98 billion cubic meters, plus 100 million tons of liquefied natural gas,” Putin added.

Trade and economy

Putin hailed China’s position as Russia’s leading trade and economic partner: “Of course, trade and economic cooperation remain a priority for us, considering that China has solidly established itself as the leading foreign trade partner for our country.”

He added: “Our two countries have been effective in working together to expand mutual trade and maintain this momentum. Last year, trade increased by 30 percent to set a new record of $185 billion. This year, trade may well exceed $200 billion, which would be a symbolic threshold.”

The two countries plan to expand the scale of the bilateral trade. “[It is planned] to increase scales and optimize the structure of trade, particularly on account of developing the electronic trade and other innovative instruments.”

The declaration added that it is also planned to “consistently promote high quality development of bilateral investment cooperation, interaction deepening in spheres of digital economy and sustainable, including green, development, form comfortable business environment and mutually increase the favoring level in trade and investments.”

Xi said the trade turnover between the two countries sky-rocketed by 110 percent over the past decade. “The trade turnover has grown by 116 percent over the decade. This made possible to not merely substantially strengthen the material basis of bilateral relations but also to give a significant impetus to socioeconomic development of both countries,” state news agency TASS quoted him as saying.

Military

The declaration stated that Moscow and Beijing will help each other defend their key interests and borders. The two countries will “provide resolute mutual support with regard to matters of defending each other’s core interests, primarily sovereignty, territorial integrity, security and development.”

US missiles

“Russia and China express concern over the United States’ increased activities toward creating a global missile defense system and deploying its elements in various parts of the world,” the declaration states.

The two countries “call on the US to stop undermining international and regional security, as well as global strategic stability in the interests of ensuring its unilateral military superiority.”

Nuclear weapons

Moscow and Beijing agree that nuclear powers should not deploy nuclear weapons abroad. “All nuclear powers must not deploy their nuclear weapons beyond their national territories, and they must withdraw all nuclear weapons deployed abroad,” the declaration reads.

For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.

Putin, Xi pledge friendship but talks yield no Ukraine breakthrough

Russia's reliance on China rises amid Ukraine sanctions