Biden holds ‘warm’ call with Ukraine’s Zelensky, officials say while denying concessions to Putin

Biden administration is ‘clearly not’ asking Ukraine to cede territory to Putin after ‘warm’ phone call with Zelensky, administration officials say

Biden spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on ThursdayAdministration officials said the call was ‘warm’ later that evening Reports suggested Biden may press Zelensky to cede autonomy to a portion of Ukrainian lands controlled by Russian-backed separatists Officials disputed the report, claiming Biden ‘made very clear that one nation can’t force another nation to change its border’ Ukrainian officials fear Putin may launch an invasion next month  Almost 100,000 Russian troops have massed near the Ukrainian border 



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President Joe Biden spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for nearly 90 minutes Thursday amid the threat of Russia invading Ukraine, in what senior officials described as a ‘warm’ phone call. 

Administration officials pushed back on reports that Biden was ready to make certain ‘concessions’ to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Associated Press reported in advance of the call that Biden may press Zelensky to formally cede some autonomy to a portion of Ukrainian lands already controlled by Russian-backed separatists in order to head off an invasion. 

‘There very clearly were not’ any concessions made to the Russian leader, officials said Thursday evening.

‘President Biden made very clear that he stood by our principles, he made very clear that one nation can’t force another nation to change its border, one nation cannot tell another to change its politics, and nations can’t tell others who they can work with,’ senior administration officials said.

Biden voiced the United States’ ‘deep concerns’ over Russia’s military buildup at Ukraine’s eastern border,’ the White House said after the call.

The president also ‘made clear that the U.S. and our Allies would respond with strong economic and other measures in the event of a further military intervention,’ the White House said.

President Joe Biden is seen speaking to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the phone

‘He reaffirmed the United States’ unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. President Biden made clear that the United States and its allies and partners are committed to the principle of “no decisions or discussions about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

‘The leaders called on Russia to de-escalate tensions and agreed that diplomacy is the best way to make meaningful progress on conflict resolution.’ 

The White House was forced to send a corrected readout of Biden and Zelensky’s call after mistakenly billing their initial statement as a ‘Readout of President Joe Biden’s Call with European Allies’ rather than the Ukrainian leader’s name.  

In a separate call with the Bucharest Nine, the U.S.’s NATO allies in Eastern Europe, Biden discussed ways to abate the crisis ‘through deterrence, defense, and dialogue.’ 

During her regular briefing, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked whether the president would ask Ukraine to cede territory to Russia.

‘That’s absolutely false,’ she said.

Psaki added that the president was expected to offer support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

‘President Biden was intending to discuss his deep concerns with Russia’s buildup on Ukraine’s borders and his commitment to respond to strong measures in the event of a Russian military escalation,’ she said.

In a tweet after the call ended, Zelensky said Biden updated him on talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

Zelensky issued a tweet saying the two leaders spoke for about 90 minutes

‘We also discussed possible formats for resolving the conflict in Donbas and touched upon the course of internal reforms in Ukraine,’ he said, referring to eastern Ukraine.  

The U.K. is to deploy additional troops in Eastern Europe amid tension in Belarus after thousands of migrants converged on the country’s borders in the hope of entering the EU.

The British Ministry of Defense announced on Thursday that 140 military engineers will be sent to Poland, adding to an existing team of 150 that are already based in the country. A separate team of reconnaissance specialists will also be sent to Lithuania.

‘Poland and Lithuania, along with their Baltic neighbor Latvia, have been under significant pressure from migration originating from Belarus and facilitated by the Lukashenko regime for a number of months,’ the MoD said. 

The area of eastern Ukraine was given ‘special status’ in a European-brokered peace deal in 2015, but it never took hold. 

Eastern Ukraine has been the source of tension since 2014. And Ukrainian lawmakers voted to extend the special status a year ago, until Dec. 31, 2021.  

Biden talks on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky from the Oval Office

President Joe Biden (right) hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (left) at the White House on September 1. They spoke by phone Thursday amid Russia’s threatening military behavior toward Ukraine  

White House Readout of Biden call with Putin 

President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. held a secure video call today with President Vladimir Putin of Russia to discuss a range of issues on the U.S.-Russia agenda. President Biden voiced the deep concerns of the United States and our European Allies about Russia’s escalation of forces surrounding Ukraine and made clear that the U.S. and our Allies would respond with strong economic and other measures in the event of military escalation. President Biden reiterated his support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and called for de-escalation and a return to diplomacy. The two presidents tasked their teams to follow up, and the U.S. will do so in close coordination with allies and partners. The presidents also discussed the U.S.-Russia dialogue on Strategic Stability, a separate dialogue on ransomware, as well as joint work on regional issues such as Iran. 

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The call follows weeks of a Russian military build up and after Biden said the U.S. would take a bigger role in trying to broker a diplomatic solution to the region’s tensions.

That means also addressing Ukrainian ambitions to join NATO – a red flag to Putin. 

While Biden and allies have resisted Putin’s calls to deny NATO membership to Ukraine, senior State Department officials have made it known that Ukrainian membership is unlikely to be approved in the next decade.  

On Tuesday morning, Biden held a video call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. 

‘I was very straightforward. There were no minced words. It was polite, but I made it very clear. If in fact, [Putin] invades Ukraine, there will be severe consequences, economic consequences like none he’s ever seen or ever have been seen being imposed,’ Biden said from the South Lawn Wednesday before traveling to Kansas City, Missouri.  

‘I have absolute confidence he got the message,’ the president added. 

The White House indicated that those threats included economic sanctions – including pushing the new German government to pull out of its Nord Stream 2 pipeline deal with Russia – as well as sending more troops to NATO allies in the region and supplying Ukraine with more material support. 

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said more U.S. troops could be headed to Poland and Romania, among others. 

 Biden stopped at sending U.S. troops into Ukraine. 

‘That is not on the table,’ he told reporters Wednesday. ‘We have a moral obligation and a legal obligation to our NATO allies if they were to attack under article 5, that’s a sacred obligation. That obligation does not extend to NATO – I mean to Ukraine,’ the president said, quickly correcting himself. 

Ukraine, a former Soviet republic with deep cultural and historic ties to Russia, has pushed for closer relations with the West. 

But that has worried Putin, who wants to keep NATO and the West away from his borders. 

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden (right) held a video call with Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) telling him there will be ‘severe consequences’ if he invades Ukraine 

Ukrainian leaders fear he could launch an invasion by the end of January, and are engaged in a frantic round of diplomacy to ensure that Putin would face sanctions and other punitive measures. 

Zelensky became a household name in the U.S. in 2019, as a prominent figure in former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment. 

Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives – but then acquitted in the GOP-held Senate – over a July 25, 2019 phone call he held with Zelensky, the newly elected president of Ukraine. 

On the call, Trump was accused of pressuring Zelensky to open up an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter, over Hunter’s business dealings in the country. 

Biden, then a former vice president seeking the Democrats’ 2020 presidential nomination, was seen as a formidable threat to Trump’s re-election chances. 

To influence Zelensky, Trump held up $400 million in military aid that Congress had approved for Ukraine and delayed an invitation to the White House. 

Biden previously met with Zelensky in person at the White House on September 1.  

After Biden speaks with Zelensky, he’ll hold a call with the so-called ‘Bucharest Nine’ group of NATO allies, which consists of the leaders from Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic.  

Stern words, economic sanctions and a diplomatic boycott: The action Obama took to deter Putin from invading Crimea in 2014

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Tuesday the U.S. planned to respond more forcefully than the Obama administration did in 2014, when Russia invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine. 

‘I will look you into the eye and tell you, as President Biden looked President Putin in the eye and told him today that things we did not do in 2014 we are prepared to do now,’ Sullivan told reporters.

‘In terms of specifics, we would prefer to communicate that directly to the Russians, to not negotiate in public, to not telegraph our punches,’ Sullivan continued. ‘But we are laying out for the Russians, in some detail, the types of measures that we have in mind.’  

In 2014 – when Biden was vice president and Barack Obama sat in the Oval – that administration tried calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin and sanctions threats to stop Moscow from annexing the Crimea. 

It didn’t work. 

In February 2014, Russian soldiers, without wearing identifying insignias, took control of strategic positions and infrastructure within the Ukrainian territory of Crimea.

President Barack Obama talks on the phone in the Oval Office with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the situation in Ukraine, March 1, 2014

So what action did President Barack Obama take to try and stop it? 

On February 28, Obama released a statement warning Russia not to intervene in Crimea.

He said: ‘Any violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity would be deeply destabilizing, which is not in the interest of Ukraine, Russia, or Europe’ and that it would be ‘a clear violation of Russia’s commitment to respect the independence and sovereignty and borders of Ukraine, and of international laws.’

On 1 March, Obama held a phone conversation with Putin and said that the Russian invasion was a ‘violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity … [and a] breach of international law.’ 

He warned of ‘greater political and economic isolation’ and threatened to withdraw the United States from the 40th G8 summit chaired by Russia.

In March, the Federation Council of the Russian Federation unanimously adopted a resolution to petition Putin to use military force in Ukraine, which he did to annex the Crimea area.

On March 3, the Obama White House announced that the United States would not send a presidential delegation to the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi, Russia, although the athletes did attend the games.

Later in March, the Obama administration imposed a series of economic sanctions on Russia. 

Crimea, a peninsula along the northern coast of the Black Sea in Eastern Europe, was claimed by Ukraine after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Russia annexed it after a military intervention by pro-Russian separatists and Russian Armed Forces. That was followed by a controversial Crimea-wide referendum, illegal under the Ukrainian and Crimean constitutions, whose official results showed over 90% support for reunification.

The vote, however, was boycotted by many loyal to Ukraine and declared illegitimate by Western governments and the United Nations.  

Russia formally annexed Crimea on 18 March 2014.

Then, in April, pro-Russia separatist rebels began seizing territory in eastern Ukraine.

In early July, the Ukrainian government launched an offensive against the rebels.

On July 17 a civilian airliner with 298 people on board was shot down over eastern Ukraine, most likely accidentally by the rebels. Ukraine doubled down.

In mid-August Russia escalated from covertly supporting the rebels to overtly invading with Russian military troops. 

On 3 September, then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko said he had reached a ‘permanent ceasefire’ agreement with Russian President Putin. (Zelensky defeated Poroshenko in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential election).

Russia denied a cease fire was signed. There is a still-running separatist war in Ukraine’s east.

Now, U.S. intelligence officials have determined that Russia has massed about 70,000 troops near its border with Ukraine and the action has resulted in comparisons being made to Moscow’s actions in 2014. 

 

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