United States President; Joe Biden on Tuesday said he would consider imposing sanctions on Russian President Vladimir Putin directly if Russia invaded Ukraine.
Reporters asked Biden if he would see himself personally sanctioning Putin if he invaded Ukraine.
“Yes,” he said. “I would see that.”
Biden also said he may move in the nearer term some of the 8,500 US troops who have been put on stand-by.
A U.S. plane carrying military equipment and munitions landed in Kyiv on Tuesday, the third shipment of a $200-million security package to shore up Ukraine.
The U.S. Defense Department has said about 8,500 U.S. troops have been put on heightened alert and are awaiting orders to deploy to NATO’s eastern flank. Biden said on Tuesday he may move the troops in the nearer term.
At his press conference last week, Biden said he thinks Putin will ultimately invade Ukraine but also predicted that the Russian president will “regret having done it.”
“I made it clear to President Putin early on that if he were to move into Ukraine that there would be severe consequences,” Biden said Tuesday.
While he continues to weigh deploying U.S. troops to Europe, President Biden said flatly on Tuesday that he has “no intention” of sending any into Ukraine if Russian President Vladimir Putin decides to invade the country.
“We have no intention of putting American forces or NATO forces in Ukraine,” Biden told reporters after visiting a craft store on Capitol Hill, adding that Putin faced “serious economic consequences if he moves.”
“There would be enormous consequences if he were to go in and invade, as he could, the entire country,” Biden continued. “There’s not gonna be any American forces moving into Ukraine.”