US President Joe Biden announced a ban on Russian oil and other energy imports on Tuesday in retaliation for the invasion of Ukraine that would also drive up US energy prices. As the US is banning all imports of Russian oil and gas that means Russian oil will no longer be acceptable in US ports and to American people, and to deal another blow to Putin’s war machine. Oil prices jumped on the news to $129.91 a barrel by Tuesday. Biden said he had been working in close collaboration with allies in Europe, who are far more dependent on Russian oil to isolate Russia’s energy-heavy economy and Putin. He said sanctions imposed by the United States and its allies had already caused the Russian economy to “crater”. The latest moves had been made in close consultation with allies and partners around the world.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine met with valiant Ukrainian resistance. President Volodymyr Zelensky became an international hero. NATO countries unified behind a truly punishing sanctions regime and significant military support. Russia’s attack strengthened Ukraine’s national identity – and its desire to join the European Union. A conflict that the US and Europe were treating as purely strategic is now a conflict about the West’s most fundamental values. President Putin was too
bold to invade the sovereignty of a country and directly warned every other country not to interfere with his plan to take over Ukraine, reminding of the consequence never experienced.
Vladimir Putin was looking for a swift invasion that would halt Ukraine’s drift toward the West, reveal NATO’s fractures and weaknesses and solidify Russia as a global power. In response, the West threatened moderate sanctions, but ultimately showed little interest in stepping between Russia and Ukraine.
As is clear when the war and everything came changed. President Putin challenged the values of democracy and territorial integrity of an independent country world over. He acted with open show of military force and challenged the NATO powers directly. Mr. Putin’s demand Ukraine is not free to join NATO or the European Union.
Ukraine is undoubtedly getting massive financial help and military hardware. But what is accepted as hard reality is that Ukraine is too small a power compared to mighty Russia.
The president of Ukraine appealed to the Western powers to come to effective help to defeat Russia’s colossal aggression. Every day the Ukrainian people are seeking safe corridors to flee the country to escape Russia’s bombardments. Ukrainians are now dispersed as refugees with elderly men, women and children in various parts of the world. Although they are being welcomed in such countries with huge sympathy, their suffering of broken family life is heartbreaking. The possibility of the whole world reduced to rubble is a reality under madness.
In our view the Western powers, including the USA, are making the mistake that economic sanctions, however harsh, will not deter Mr. Putin from invading Ukraine. He has found the USA and its partners have no intention to face president Putin in Russia. He wants to put in place his dominance as military power.
The rest of the world can think of him as mad, there is no doubt that he is power drunk, that it is all the more important to stop him in the shortest possible time.
To give him more time will only make him more desperate. The hope that harshness of economic sanctions will cause the Russian powerful elite to rise to remove Mr. Putin is too thin to rely on. He will be keener to finish the war by mobilising all his war resources. Ukraine is already a deserted country.
“This isn’t the Russian people’s war,” US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said in a news conference on Wednesday. But, he added, “The Russian people will suffer the consequences of their leader’s choices.”
He assured the Russian people that the economic costs that “We’ve been forced to impose on Russia are not aimed at you. They are aimed at compelling your government to stop its actions, to stop its aggression.”
Our view is President Putin will be compelled to withdraw from the war only when he is convinced that he is not safe and not available for compromise.
