(PresidentialInsider.com)- During his speech to the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the US and NATO not to wait until his country is invaded to impose sanctions on Russia.
Zelensky said the US and NATO are telling him Russia will invade, and asked “what are you waiting for?”
And on Sunday, after telling reporters that Russian President Vladimir Putin has already decided to invade Ukraine, Vice President Kamala Harris claimed that the threat of sanctions alone would deter Putin from invading Ukraine.
Sounds a bit contradictory, doesn’t it?
During her press scrum with reporters in Munich, Kamala was asked if she thinks the threat of sanctions is enough to deter Putin if he’s already made up his mind to invade Ukraine.
Kamala said the threat of sanctions was absolutely enough. She told reporters to remember that these sanctions aren’t just “a product” of “our perspective as the United States but a shared perspective among Allies.”
And? So what?
If Putin has already decided to invade, then clearly the threat of sanctions isn’t stopping him.
Kamala went on to explain that the US and its allies have agreed that there is a “deterrence effect” from the threat of these sanctions, which she described as “the greatest” and “strongest” sanctions “we’ve ever issued.”
After telling reporters that “Putin’s made his decision” to invade Ukraine, Kamala Harris says the threat of sanctions will “absolutely” deter him making the decision to invade. pic.twitter.com/Lgitgh7rOU
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 20, 2022
Kamala was wrong.
The day after she made these assurances, Putin formally recognized the independence of the eastern Ukrainian territories of Donetsk and Luhansk and ordered Russian “peacekeepers” into the region.
And just three days later, in the early hours of February 24, Putin ordered Russian troops to attack Ukraine.
From land, air, and sea, Russia’s assault on Ukraine kicked off with missiles raining down on Ukrainian cities as columns of Russian troops poured over the borders into eastern Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Luhansk regions, made sea landings on Odessa and Mariupol in the south, and crossed the border from Belarus in the north.
The threat of sanctions, however “great” or “strong,” didn’t have the “deterrence effect” Kamala thought it would.
