WASHINGDON, DC — The
US on Tuesday warned
Moscow of
damaging sanctions, including high-tech export curbs, as Russian combat troops
massing around Ukraine launched new exercises.
اضافة اعلان
Unveiling ways that Western allies intend to inflict
"massive consequences" on Russia's economy in the event of a Ukraine
invasion, a senior US official also warned Moscow against using energy exports
as a weapon.
"We are prepared to implement sanctions with massive
consequences" that go far beyond previous measures implemented in 2014
after Russia invaded Ukraine's Crimea region, the official said.
"The gradualism of the past is out," the official
told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson echoed the threat,
saying sanctions would be "heavier than anything we've ever done
before".
New measures would include restrictions on exports of
high-tech US equipment in the artificial intelligence, quantum computing and
aerospace sectors, the US official said.
"What we're talking about are sophisticated
technologies that we design and produce" and cutting them off would hit
President Vladimir Putin's "strategic ambitions to industrialize his
economy quite hard," the official told reporters.
New Russian military exercises
A day after Washington said it was putting 8,500 US troops
on alert for possible deployment to bolster
NATO forces in Europe, the Russian
military announced it was conducting new drills involving 6,000 troops near
Ukraine and within the Crimea region.
The drills included firing exercises with fighter jets,
bombers, anti-aircraft systems and ships from the
Black Sea and Caspian fleets,
the defense ministry said.
According to Western officials, the Kremlin has already
deployed more than 100,000 troops on
Ukraine's borders, with reinforcements
arriving from all over Russia.
The US and its EU allies accuse Russia of seeking to upend
European stability by threatening invasion of Ukraine, a former Soviet republic
striving to join NATO and other Western institutions.
"Russia has placed a gun to Ukraine's head,"
Johnson told parliament.
Moscow denies plans to invade the country, where in addition
to seizing Crimea it backs separatist forces controlling a swath of eastern
Ukraine.
Russia blames the West for the tension and has put forward a
list of demands, including a guarantee that Ukraine never join NATO and that
NATO forces already in the former Soviet bloc pull back.
Energy threats
Addressing concerns in
Europe that Russia could curb energy
exports to heavily dependent Europe, the senior US official said Russia would
also be hurting itself.
"If Russia decides to weaponize its supply of natural
gas or crude oil, it wouldn't be without consequences to the Russian
economy," a senior US official told reporters.
Although the EU sources about 40 percent of its supply from
Russia, Moscow also relies heavily on sales of energy for its national budget,
meaning "it's an interdependency," the official said.
The US and its European allies are scouring global markets
for alternative energy sources to mitigate fallout from any conflict, as Europe
already finds itself struggling with soaring mid-winter energy prices.
Divisions in the West
Negotiations in European cities this month have failed to ease
tensions, though US Secretary of State
Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign
Minister
Sergei Lavrov agreed at a meeting in Geneva on Friday to keep talking.
The French government said Russian and Ukrainian officials
would meet, along with French and German counterparts, in Paris on Wednesday.
Washington has promised to provide written answers to
Moscow's demands this week, while already making clear that it rejects giving
Russia a veto on Ukraine's aspirations to join NATO.
After a call with European leaders on Monday, US President
Joe Biden said there was "total unanimity" on how to deal with
Russia.
But the crisis has laid bare divisions in the West.
The new government in EU economic powerhouse Germany in
particular has faced criticism from Kyiv over its refusal to send defensive
weapons to Ukraine, as well as hesitating over one of the harshest economic
sanctions under discussion -- cutting Moscow from the global SWIFT payments
system.
'False flag' jitters
Ukraine's military is heavily outgunned by Russia and no
Western country is considering deploying troops to help repel any attack by
Moscow.
However, the US has stepped up deliveries of weapons, with
Blinken on a visit to Kyiv last week confirming another $200 million in aid. A
shipment arrived on Saturday and another batch was due Tuesday.
The US warns that Moscow could manufacture a "false
flag" incident in Ukraine to justify an attack of its own.
Russia denies this, but Ukraine claimed Tuesday it had
dismantled a group of saboteurs "coordinated by Russian special
services" who had planned a "series of armed attacks" aimed at
destabilizing the country.
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