British Prime Minister Boris Johnson preceded President Joe Biden in calling Russian troops' movement into the Ukraine's Donbas region an "invasion," and in imposing strong sanctions against the superpower.
The prime minister, in an emergency statement to the House of Commons, said that Russian armed forces moving into the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk amounted to a "renewed invasion" of Ukraine.
Johnson announced that the United Kingdom was imposing sanctions on five Russian banks and three wealthy individuals in response to Putin's military incursion.
After Johnson's strong words and actions, the White House on Tuesday began referring to Russian troop deployments in eastern Ukraine as an "invasion" — a term it had been hesitant to use.
Unlike the U.K. sanctions, Biden instead on Monday issued a more limited executive order that prohibits new investment, trade, and financing by Americans to, from, or in Donetsk and Luhansk.
The Biden administration had said Putin's decision to send troops he called peacemakers into breakaway regions of Ukraine did not as yet constitute a further invasion that would trigger a broader sanctions package.
"We will take further measures [Tuesday] to hold Russia accountable for this clear violation of international law and Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as of Russia's own international commitments," an administration official said Monday.
Johnson, meanwhile, did not need further Russian advancement to impose sanctions. He also pledged that Great Britain "will not waver" and was ready to implement further "much, much tougher" action if the crisis heightens.
"We must now brace ourselves for the next possible stages of Putin's plan: the violent subversion of areas of eastern Ukraine by Russian operatives and their hirelings, followed by a general offensive by the nearly 200,000 Russian troops gathered on the frontiers, at peak readiness to attack," the prime minister told House of Commons members.
"If the worst happens, then a European nation of 44 million men, women and children would become the target of a full-scale war of aggression, waged without a shred of justification, for the absurd and even mystical reasons that Putin described [Monday] night."
Johnson, who said Putin "plainly" was breaking international law by recognizing Donetsk and Luhansk independence, added that the U.K. will continue to seek a diplomatic resolution to the crisis "until the last possible moment."
The prime minister also hailed Germany's decision to halt certification of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and labeled it as "a brave step."
"I salute the decision of the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to cancel Nord Stream 2. And I think it's a brave step by Olaf and the right thing to do," Johnson said.
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