President Joe Biden, known for his penchant for verbal mistakes and missteps, will put his diplomatic skills to the test as he seeks to deescalate tensions between Russia and Ukraine during his highly anticipated video call with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.
But the White House is struggling to project strength while underscoring its preference for peace and stability in the region as it tries to adopt a tougher line with other adversaries such as China.
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The same administration officials who defended Biden’s insistence that Ukraine enact corruption reforms in exchange for NATO admission are now being needled on whether the president will tell Putin on Tuesday that he would potentially launch a military offensive against Russia if it invaded its neighbor.
Biden’s aim is to communicate diplomatically that Russia should withdraw roughly 100,000-strong personnel and equipment from its Ukraine border, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki.
“It’s not about threats,” the former State Department spokeswoman said Monday. “It’s about conveying [that] the right path forward here is through diplomacy.”
But just an hour earlier, a senior administration official sang a slightly different tune. The official was adamant that Biden did not want conflict with Russia, yet the source added he would likely respond by sending troops to NATO countries — similar to what happened after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 under the then-European Reassurance Initiative. The move, however, failed to deter this buildup.
“In the event of an invasion, the need to reinforce the confidence and reassurance of our NATO allies and their eastern flank allies would be real, and the United States would be prepared to provide that kind of reassurance,” the official said.
Both Psaki and the official pointed to Biden and his aides’ coordination with NATO and trans-Atlantic partners regarding economic sanctions that the bloc would impose if Putin ordered an attack against Ukraine. Neither addressed whether the president would revisit his agreement with Germany to permit the Nord Stream 2 pipeline’s completion. The 764-mile underwater project would allow Russia to bypass Ukraine, Poland, and Belarus as it pumps natural gas into Western Europe, depriving Ukraine of $2 billion in annual transit revenue, or 3% of its gross domestic product.
Republicans spent Monday preemptively dunking on Biden before Tuesday’s call to Putin. America Rising political action committee spokeswoman Whitney Robertson, for example, implored the president “to lead with strength” because his weakness has “emboldened” adversaries.
“He backed away from holding Russia accountable for its treatment of Alexei Navalny after calling it an issue of ‘deep concern,'” she told reporters of the Russian opposition leader. “The Biden administration was also all talk and no action following Russia’s anti-satellite missile test that scattered more than a thousand pieces of debris throughout space and endangered the crew on the International Space Station,” she added.
The nuances of the White House’s Russia-Ukraine policy were pronounced in tandem with its announcement that Biden would not dispatch a representative to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games over “crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights abuses.” Nikki Haley, former President Donald Trump’s U.N. ambassador and possible 2024 Republican presidential candidate, slammed Biden’s decision for being limited.
“Not sending a U.S. delegation sends a clear message that we cannot conduct ourselves with business as usual, that we are not in a state where business as usual is appropriate,” Psaki said. “At the same time, we believe U.S. athletes, people who have been training, giving up a lot of blood, sweat, and tears preparing for these Olympics, should be able to go and compete. And we look forward to cheering for them from home.”
Psaki declined to elaborate on the Biden-Putin call, including how long it is expected to last. But the official previewed that the pair’s conversation would not be “confined” to Ukraine. They would discuss cybersecurity, a major carryover agenda item from Geneva, and the Iran nuclear deal, the source said. China and Russia have been collaborating with the burgeoning nuclear power to maintain the status quo. Russia has indicated that Ukraine being granted NATO membership would be a “red line.”
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Russian military assets have been amassing along the Ukraine border over recent weeks, its largest presence since the annexation of Crimea and the second surge this year, though Biden’s team was careful to note it was not aware of intelligence that Putin would invade. The movement coincides with a disinformation campaign against Ukraine.
