US plans sanctions, trade embargo on Russia if talks to diffuse conflict with Ukraine fail

As Russia and the US enter dialogues to seek a diplomatic resolution to the escalating tensions between Moscow and Kyiv, the Biden administration, its allies, and partners are mulling new possible sanctions in case talks to diffuse possible conflict fail and Moscow invades the Ukrainian territory. US President Biden’s administration is developing financial, technology, and military sanctions against Russia, a report carried by The New York Times said Saturday. 

It further added that these sanctions will be slapped on the Kremlin just hours after it launched a military offensive and attempts to invade Kyiv. Should Putin send military troops concentrated at the frontier with Ukraine to declare a full-blown war on Ukrainian soldiers, Washington is prepared to retaliate Russia with sanctions, but the focus, however, remains on the diplomatic framework to simmer down those tensions, the newspaper reported. The Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US asserted, comes with a ‘consequence’. 

The report comes ahead of the  Russia-US-NATO talks scheduled for next week to be led by Biden’s deputy secretary of state, Wendy R. Sherman, who negotiated the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. US officials hope to hit a diplomatic resolution to the conflict during the talks as having abstained from opting a threatening approach upfront. Despite Washington’s focus on the diplomatic way out to the months-long cold war between Russia and its ex-soviet neighbour, talks are also now ongoing among the officials for the Biden administration about cutting off Russia’s largest financial institutions from global transactions. US plans to slap trade embargoes on American-designed technology and defence-related consumer industry, alongside crippling economic sanctions, reported NY Times. 

Russia will 'invite consequences'

President Biden’s advisers have been pushing for his presidency to put forth an affirmative message that invading Ukraine, a longtime US ally whom it pledges military support, will invite consequences. The US side will also make demands for “security guarantees,” from Russia in return for adhering to guarantees sought by Russian officials in the two treaties dispatched to the Biden administration earlier last month. But the US continues to insist that Russian President Vladimir Putin will pay a "price" should he make a rampant decision to mobilise troops for the invasion.

Russia, meanwhile, had earlier dismissed what it labelled ‘US manufactured hysteria’ about invading Ukraine and had instead launched a scathing attack on US-led NATO forces stationing military troops on its “doorstep”. Biden is also positive that betting that the threat of unprecedented sanctions on the Kremlin will persuade powerful Russian leader Putin from his initial plan of launching an offensive on Kyiv, in the hope that he would succumb to the global pressure. US leader Biden had also earlier made clear that the military response to Russia’s actions was “not in the cards”.