President Joe Biden has announced the U.S. is ordering heavy financial sanctions against Russian banks and oligarchs, declaring that Moscow has flagrantly violated international law by invading Ukraine.
The U.S. president said he was also moving additional U.S. troops to the Baltic states on NATO’s eastern flank.
Biden joined the 27 European Union members who unanimously agreed on Tuesday to levy their own initial set of sanctions targeting Russian officials over their actions in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin called Tuesday for international recognition of Crimea as part of Russia, an end to Ukraine’s NATO membership bid and a halt to weapons shipments there.
Putin claimed that Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula should be internationally recognized as a legitimate reflection of the local population’s choice, likening it to a vote for Kosovo independence. The annexation has been widely condemned by Western powers as a breach of international law.
To end the current crisis, he also called for the renunciation of Ukraine’s NATO bid, saying it should assume a “neutral status,” and said that the West should stop sending weapons there.
Putin warned Monday that the Western rejection of Moscow's demands gives Russia the right to take other steps to protect its security.
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