Putin and Biden hold virtual summit on Ukraine

RUSSIA / FSU POLITICS - In Brief 07 Dec 2021 by Alex Teddy
On December 7 the two presidents spoke for 2 hours. The main topic was the Ukraine situation. The US is worried by the buildup of up to 175,000 Russian troops near Ukraine. Moscow insists that this is nothing menacing. The expert consensus is that there will not be a full-scale invasion and possibly no action at all. Biden promised strong economic sanctions if Russia invades Ukraine. Putin might not be deterred by that. Western sanctions have hurt Russia but have not been disastrous. The country is increasingly adept at minimizing the impact of sanctions and has already developed an ersatz version of SWIFT in case this happens. Even if all this were imposed it still might not deter Russia. The economic loss might be considered a price worth paying. The head of Sberbank (German Gref) earlier stated that many of the so-called measures being mooted by western media as actionable against Russia simply were not even technically possible. These included an alleged ban on the convertibility of the RUB, which Gref said is not possible and certainly not unilateral. The US called on Russia to reduce tensions and reaffirmed its belief that Crimea is Ukrainian. Biden will later speak to other NATO leaders on how to proceed. Putin and Biden also spoke about Iran and ransomware. Russia has not so far published a precis of the meeting. According to the US, Putin asked Biden to vow that Ukraine would never be admitted to NATO. Biden refused to do so. Putin's press spokesman said of the meeting that Russia is not planning an invasion but that Russia has red lines, too.The Kremlin complained that NATO is being provocative. The rumors of a Russian invasion of Ukraine were explained as ru...

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