WASHINGTON — With Russia poised for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration Wednesday stiffened economic sanctions targeting Moscow, and the Ukrainian president made a televised appeal for peace in a dramatic last-minute effort to avert war in Eastern Europe.
“The government in Ukraine wants peace,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said — in Russian — in a late-night video address, seeking to convince Russia’s people that Ukraine is not their enemy. He added that he has tried to reach Russian President Vladimir Putin to no avail.
In Washington, President Joe Biden announced he would allow previously blocked sanctions to take effect against the company behind the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. The U.S. “will not hesitate to take further steps if Russia continues to escalate,” he said in a statement.
The new sanctions, following the initial package announced Tuesday, came amid unmistakable signals that Putin is escalating his invasion of Ukraine. The Russian leader on Monday formally recognized two separatist territories in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, Donetsk and Luhansk, as independent, and the upper house of Russia’s parliament on Tuesday approved the deployment of troops. U.S. officials warned Wednesday that a “full-scale” invasion was “imminent.”
While U.S. officials are still confirming Russian troop movements, those forces are “as ready as they can be” to launch a full invasion, a senior Defense Department official said. “They are dang near 100%,” said the official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details. “They’re in a three-point stance and ready to go.”
Leaders in the region were equally blunt. Latvian Prime Minister Arturs Krisjanis Karins, during an interview with CNN, cited information that “Putin is moving additional forces and tanks into the occupied Donbas territories.”
In another ominous development, the Kremlin late Wednesday claimed that separatists in the areas it just recognized were calling for Russian help to defend against Ukrainian attack. Most journalists on the scene say the majority of attacks were coming from the Russian-occupied region against Ukraine, and there were suggestions this was the kind of “false-flag” scenario U.S. officials have been predicting Moscow would launch as a pretext to invade.
With that and the U.S. warnings, there was a definite shift in mood Wednesday among residents in Ukraine’s principal cities who until now had evinced a certain detachment about a looming war.
The country shifted to a war footing when its parliament gave enthusiastic approval for a state of national emergency. The measure grants authorities the ability to restrict movement and ban political parties. The government in Kyiv also called on its citizens to return from Russia, as Russian diplomats lowered the flag on their embassy in the Ukraine capital and abandoned their consulate in the coastal city of Odessa.
In Shchastia, a Ukrainian town just north of one of the breakaway republics, the remaining 7,000 residents on Wednesday were forced to deal with large power outages because incoming shells fired from the Russian-occupied region had sliced through electrical lines and towers.
With no electricity to run pumps, pensioners and the young lined up to fill water canisters from a communal well with a hand pump. Others queued before the town’s sole working ATM as well as a nearby pharmacy. In the background, the thump-thump of artillery and machine guns echoed across the countryside.
In Washington, the Biden administration’s addition to its sanctions package came a day after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whose country controls the Nord Stream 2 pipeline built to transport natural gas from Russia directly to Germany, announced he was halting certification of the project.
“Through his actions, President Putin has provided the world with an overwhelming incentive to move away from Russian gas and to other forms of energy,” Biden said in the statement announcing the sanctions, which also thanked Scholz “for his close partnership and continued dedication to holding Russia accountable for its actions.”
It’s more evidence of the coordination among allies as they shift from an assiduous effort to deter Putin to one aimed at containing his ongoing attack on Ukraine. And it follows the Biden administration’s vow to impose additional measures against Moscow as the invasion proceeds.
The pipeline project has been especially problematic. Germany and other parts of Europe badly need the gas, but U.S. officials have repeatedly warned that becoming overly reliant on Russian fuel would allow Moscow to “weaponize” energy supplies.
Germany’s decision Tuesday to suspend the project showed self-sacrifice that U.S. officials appear eager to endorse, and mirrors Washington’s own willingness to absorb any effects on consumers from rising gas prices and the political price the administration could pay.
Until now, Biden had been resigned to the project — which was nearing completion when he took office. The White House, in fact, had issued a waiver to block the congressionally mandated sanctions it is now preparing to impose.
Republicans, many of whom have criticized Biden’s first tranche of sanctions against Russia as too measured, have called for months for the administration to lift its waiver on the Nord Stream 2 sanctions, with Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, blocking votes on the White House’s diplomatic nominees in protest.
Cruz was among the first to give rare praise to the administration Wednesday; he said he was lifting the holds on nominees and urged steps to “lock in” the sanctions as a permanent deterrent. “President Biden made the right decision today,” Cruz said in a statement. "... Our Ukrainian allies are on the front lines this very moment bravely facing down Russian forces.”
Congress approved the sanctions against the project’s parent company, also named Nord Stream 2, a Swiss firm whose parent is the Russian gas conglomerate Gazprom, and its chief executive, Matthias Warnig, first in 2019 and then a broader sanctions package in 2020. But the Biden administration blocked them, citing national security issues related to both Russia and Germany, a key ally.
The expanded reach of U.S. sanctions comes amid a wide global reproach of Russia’s actions. Nearly every major country — with the exception of China — condemned Putin’s claims on Ukraine and in many cases exacted their own sanctions.
Britain went after several Russian billionaires close to Putin, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his government would expand financial sanctions to punish “thugs and bullies.” Even Turkey, which, despite belonging to NATO, has lately had good relations with Russia, said Putin’s new moves were “unacceptable.”
By contrast, China, one of Moscow’s staunchest allies, blamed the U.S. for stoking the “threat of war” and categorized sanctions as unlawful measures that punish ordinary Russians.
The presence of Russia and China as permanent members of the United Nations Security Council means any sort of action or resolution from the world body is next to impossible. Still, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Linda Thomas-Greenfield, on Wednesday excoriated Putin and his government.
“Russia’s actions have only confirmed what we and other nations have been warning about,” she told the General Assembly. The U.N. “must recognize the threat before us all today before it’s too late. Colleagues, there is no middle ground here. Calling for both sides to de-escalate only gives Russia a pass. Russia is the aggressor here.”
Russia has been under some form of international sanctions since another invasion of Ukraine, its 2014 occupation of Crimea. Elite business and banking officials in the country have found numerous ways to inoculate themselves from the sting.
But sanctions imposed now, and new ones in the coming days, are “qualitatively” harsher that earlier measures, State Department spokesman Ned Price said.
On Wednesday, Russian officials, who branded the U.S. actions as “blackmail,” again made it clear they would maneuver to soften the blow of sanctions — and retaliate. What form that retaliation would take was not specified, but it could range from cyberattacks on U.S. infrastructure to tinkering with energy markets. Already the fear of rising oil prices was roiling international markets.
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(Stokols and Wilkinson reported from Washington and Bulos from Shchastia, Ukraine. Times staff writer Anumita Kaur in Washington contributed to this report..)
