- President Joe Biden on Saturday said Russia will end up paying a price for its invasion of Ukraine.
- He reiterated that Russia will be held accountable, especially in the long term.
- Biden added that Putin had hoped to divide NATO but has been unsuccessful.
President Joe Biden reiterated that Russia would be held accountable for its invasion of Ukraine in an interview with Brian Tyler Cohen on Saturday.
Biden told Cohen that Russia will pay a serious price for the invasion, especially in the long term.
While White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced on Friday that the US will personally sanction Putin, a significant move of condemnation against one of the world's most powerful leaders, as Insider's Sonam Sheth and John Haltiwanger reported, Cohen suggested that sanctions imposed on Russia in the past have not been very useful in deterring Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"We've seen sanctions get imposed on Putin after Georgia in 2008, after Crimea in 2014, election hacking in 2016," Cohen told Biden.
Biden quickly responded: "Nothing like this though. Look, you have two options – start a third world war, go to war with Russia physically or two – make sure a country that acts so contrary to international law ends up paying a price for having done it."
Biden added there are no sanctions that are immediate.
"It's not like you can sanction someone and say 'you no longer are going to be able to be President of Russia.' I know these sanctions are the broadest sanctions in history," Biden said.
The president added that his goal from the beginning was to ensure that all of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, is on the "same page."
"The one thing that I think that Putin thought he could do was split NATO, creating a great aperture for him to walk through, and that hasn't happened if you noticed. There's been complete unanimity," Biden said. "And Russia will pay a serious price for this short term and long term, particularly long term."
Biden added that he thinks the impact of Russia's invasion will have on the country will be far-reaching beyond just Europe.
"If the democracies of the world hold together, I think it increases the prospect that we're going to have less chaos rather than more," Biden said.