United States President Joe Biden said in a press conference on Tuesday Feb. 22 that, “This is the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
In his speech addressing Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent move to send troops to Eastern Ukraine and declare two Russian-backed separatist regions as independent, President Biden said that Russia has undeniably moved against Ukraine.
President Biden said the United States would be enforcing economic sanctions on Russia in response to the invasion of Russian forces, and that more sanctions and measures would be taken by the U.S. if Russia continued its aggression.
"We will continue to escalate sanctions if Russia escalates," President Biden said. He also said that the United States would be deploying more of its military forces already in Europe to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, but that these forces would only be there in a purely defensive manner.
"We have no intention of fighting Russia," President Biden said.
President Biden ended his speech by saying that Russia's actions were in violation of international law, there is no question that Russia is the aggressor and that there was still time to use diplomacy to avoid a worst-case scenario.
