Biden-Putin talks: No shortage of sanction options for US if Russia invades Ukraine

WASHINGTON: The Biden administration has plenty of options to make good on its pledge to hit Russia financially if President Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine, from sanctions targeting Putin's associates to cutting Russia off from the financial system that sends money flowing around the world.

The United States and European allies have made no public mention of any plans to respond militarily themselves if Putin sends troops massed along the border into Ukraine, a former Soviet republic with close historical and cultural ties to Russia but now eager to ally with NATO and the West.

Instead, payback could be all about the money.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week promised financial pain, 'high impact economic measures that we've refrained from taking in the past.'

President Joe Biden on Friday said the US had developed the "most comprehensive and meaningful set of initiatives to make it very, very difficult for Mr. Putin."

The United States over the past decade already has put a range of sanctions in place against Russian entities and individuals, many of them over Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea and its support for armed separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014.

US sanctions also have sought to punish Russia for election interference, malicious cyberactivities and human rights abuses.

Since 2014, the West also has helped Ukraine build up its military.

So while Putin denies any intention of launching an offensive, his troops would face a Ukrainian army much more capable of putting up a fight.

The sanctions now imposed on Russians include asset freezes, bans on doing business with US companies and denial of entry to the United States.

But in seeking to punish Russia, the West over the years has weighed even bigger financial penalties.

That includes the so-called nuclear option: blocking Russia from the Belgium-based SWIFT system of financial payments that moves money among thousands of banks around the world.

The European Parliament this year approved a non-binding resolution calling for that step if Russia does invade Ukraine.

When the US successfully pressured SWIFT to disconnect Iranian banks over Iran's nuclear programme, the country lost almost half of its oil export revenue and a third of its foreign trade, said Maria Shagina, an expert on sanctions and energy politics affiliated with the Carnegie Moscow Center think tank.

The impact on Russia's economy would be "equally devastating," Shagina writes.

Russia depends on its oil and natural gas exports for more than one-third of its federal revenues, and depends on SWIFT to make the petrodollars flow.

Russia has worked since 2014 to insulate its domestic financial systems from such a cutoff.

A SWIFT cutoff would cause indirect pain for Western economies as well.

John Herbst, a former US ambassador to Ukraine and career diplomat, said Friday he believed that while "SWIFT is not off the table, it would be a last resort."

The Biden administration earlier this year further limited Russia's ability to borrow money by banning US financial institutions from buying Russian government bonds directly from state institutions.

But the sanctions didn't target the secondary market, leaving this as a possible next step.

Other possible tools and targets, Herbst noted: financial sanctions targeting people close to Putin and their families; and more sanctions on Russian banks and on Russia's vital energy sector.

Presidents Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin will speak in a video call on Tuesday, the White House and Kremlin said, as tensions between the United States and Russia escalate over a Russian troop buildup on the Ukrainian border that is seen as a sign of a potential invasion.

Biden will press US concerns about Russian military activities on the border and "reaffirm the United States' support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Saturday, confirming the planned call after first word came from Moscow.

Putin will come to the call with concerns of his own and intends to express Russia's opposition to any move to admit Ukraine into the NATO military alliance.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said "the presidents will decide themselves" how long their talk will last.

The last known call between the leaders was in July, when Biden pressed Putin to rein in Russia-based criminal hacking gangs launching ransomware attacks against the United States.

Biden said the US would take any necessary steps to protect critical infrastructure from such attacks.

Ransomware attacks have continued since then, though perhaps none has been as alarming as the one from May that targeted a major fuel pipeline and resulted in days of gas shortages in parts of the US.

Russia is more adamant than ever that the US guarantees that Ukraine will not be admitted to the NATO military alliance.

But NATO's secretary-general, Jens Stoltenberg, said this past week that Russia has no say in expansion plans by other countries or the alliance.

Numerous former US and NATO diplomats say any such Russian demand to Biden would be a nonstarter.

US intelligence officials, meanwhile, have determined that Russia has massed about 70,000 troops near its border with Ukraine and has begun planning for a possible invasion as soon as early next year, according to a Biden administration official who was not authorised to discuss that finding publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The risks for Putin of going through with such an invasion would be enormous.

US officials and former American diplomats say while the Russian president is clearly laying the groundwork for a possible invasion, Ukraine's military is better armed and prepared today than in the past, and that sanctions threatened by the West would do serious damage to the Russian economy.

"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 said on Friday.

Ukrainian officials have said Russia could invade next month.

Ukraine's defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, said the number of Russian troops near Ukraine and in Russia-annexed Crimea is estimated at 94,300, and warned that a "large-scale escalation" is possible in January.

Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky, recently charged that a group of Russians and Ukrainians planned to attempt a coup in his country and that the plotters tried to enlist the help of Ukraine's richest man, Rinat Akhmetov.

Russia and Akhmetov have denied that any plot is underway, but the Russians have become more explicit recently in their warnings to Ukraine and the United States.

Biden is also expected to speak with Zelensky in the coming week, according to a person close to the Ukrainian leader.

This person was not authorised to comment publicly before the announcement of the call and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Kremlin said Friday that Putin, during his call with Biden, would seek binding guarantees precluding NATO's expansion to Ukraine.

Biden tried to head off the demand in comments to reporters Friday before leaving for a weekend stay at Camp David.

"I don't accept anyone's red line," Biden said.

Psaki said in a brief statement Saturday that Biden and Putin will discuss a range of topics in the US-Russia relationship, "including strategic stability, cyber, and regional issues."

She said on Friday that the administration would coordinate with European allies if it moved forward with sanctions.

She alluded to Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that had been under Ukraine's control since 1954.

Russia has also backed separatists in eastern Ukraine in a 7-year conflict that has cost over 14,000 lives.

"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."

US-Russia relations have been rocky since Biden took office.

His administration has imposed sanctions against Russian targets and called out Putin for the Kremlin's interference in US elections, cyberactivity against American companies and the treatment of opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who was poisoned last year and later imprisoned.

When Putin and Biden met in Geneva in June, Biden warned that if Russia crossed certain red lines, including going after major American infrastructure, his administration would respond and "the consequences of that would be devastating.