US President Joe Biden will speak to Russia's Vladimir Putin in a crucial video call today, as tensions soar along the Ukrainian border. According to multiple reports, Biden, who has stated that he doesn't accept "anybody's red lines", will threaten Russia with crippling sanctions if it invades Ukraine. Russia's stance is clear. The Kremlin said that Putin, during his call with Biden, would seek binding guarantees against NATO's expansion to Ukraine, a region which the Russian president sees as a buffer against hostile advances from the West.
Before the video call, Biden will consult with European allies. Officials from other leading NATO nations the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy are expected to be on call with Biden, who is looking to coordinate messaging and potential economic sanctions against Russia.
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. 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".
US intelligence officials had claimed through media leaks 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. The risks for Putin of going through with such an invasion would be enormous. However, things might not come to that head. Ukraine's military is better armed and prepared today than in the past, and the sanctions threatened by the West would do serious damage to the Russian economy.
Also, as numerous analysts have pointed out, Russia has nothing to gain from an invasion of a well-prepared Ukraine at this point of time. But, this could be Putin's ploy to push Kyiv into a careful consideration of a cost-benefit analysis of getting closer to the NATO and the West. In essence, this could be a game where the one who blinks first loses.
On the other hand, there is the larger question of how Biden will handle the steadily deteriorating US-Russia relations, which have been rocky since the former 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."
