President BidenVerified account

The American people are united. The world is united. We stand with the people of Ukraine.

Last night, Congress passed a bipartisan spending bill that included an additional $13.6 billion in new assistance for the Ukrainian people. I look forward to signing that immediately.

Putin’s war against Ukraine will never be a victory. He hoped to dominate Ukraine without a fight. He hoped to fracture European resolve. He hoped to weaken the trans-Atlantic Alliance. He hoped to split apart America. He failed.

I want to be clear: We will defend every inch of NATO territory with the full might of a united and galvanized NATO. But we will not fight a war against Russia in Ukraine. A direct confrontation between NATO and Russia is World War III. And something we must strive to prevent.

The totality of our sanctions is crushing the Russian economy. The ruble has lost more than half its value. The list of private businesses leaving Russia is growing by the day.

These are the latest steps we are taking, but they will not be the last. And as I said at the beginning, all of these steps will hit Putin harder because the United States and our closest Allies and partners are acting in unison.

While we’re going after their superyachts and vacation homes that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, we’re also going to make it harder for them to buy the high-end products manufactured in our countries. We’re banning the export of luxury goods to Russia.

The G7 is also stepping up pressure on corrupt Russian billionaires. We’re adding new names to the list of oligarchs we are targeting — and we’re increasing coordination among G7 countries to target and capture their ill-gotten gains.

We’re also taking the further step of banning the import of goods from several signature sectors of Russia’s economy including seafood, vodka, and diamonds. The G7 will also seek to deny Russia the ability to borrow from leading multilateral institutions.

First, each of our nations will take steps to deny Russia “Most-Favored Nation” status. It will make it harder for Russia to do business with the U.S. And doing it in unison with nations that together make up half of the global economy, will be another crushing blow to Russia.

Later today, together with the other nations of the G7 and the EU, we will jointly announce several new steps to squeeze Putin and to hold him accountable for his aggression against Ukraine. I want to speak to a few key points.