asked antony blinken what he would do in this exact situation. let s listen. would seizing or recognizing the entire donbas region qualify as an invasion and result in the crippling sanctions that you re threatening? if a single additional russian force goes into ukraine in an aggressive way, as i am, that would trigger a swift, severe and united response from us and from europe. general, do you think now is the time for the u.s. to impose the larger sanction package rather than what was announced today? good afternoon. serious times. my question, i am, i have been against it, at this stage before about imposing sanctions. but i m at a tipping point right now. the russians, the kremlin seems to be relentless, implacable, and they re not going to stop.
hundreds of countries around the world on a strong package that will be crippling to the russian economy. mark: the white house is convinced that sanction package would be crippling to the russian economy there s still negotiation in europe about what sanctions will ultimately include and we heard from the italian prime minister yesterday who said he doesn t believe the energy sector from russia should be targeted because europe gets energy from russia. jacqui, a lot of people curious to see reaction today. jacqui: seems like the same sentiment that jen psaki said was unfair and not true from zelensky carries different weight. mark: they want to see a strong pushback for any invasion and
refugee flow and displaced people. so this is potentially very, very dangerous. tonight vice president kamala harris is back in the unite after spending her united states after spending her weekend in germany. ukraine s president was basically very clear yesterday when he said he did not want the u.s. to wait any longer to sanction russia given the actions putin has taken already. we heard from the pentagon spokesperson, john kirby, earlier today on fox who said that would be the wrong move at this point. it s supposed to be a deterrent. if you punish somebody for something they haven t done yet, then they might as well just go ahead and doe it. we re hoping do it.. reporter: but there are still ongoing debates in europe over what should and should not be included in a sanction package, specifically when it comes to russian energy exports.
were confined to the past. mark lowen, bbc news, przemysl, eastern poland. the head of the eu commission, ursula von der leyen, has praised the resistance by the ukrainian army and population as she outlined new measures in response to the russian invasion, announcing new financial sanctions, she said the eu, us, and their allies have agreed to cut off a number of russian banks from the main international payment system, swift. watching that press conference was our europe editor. conference was our europe ednon conference was our europe editor. . ., , ., editor. the eu, which does not have a reputation editor. the eu, which does not have a reputation for editor. the eu, which does not have a reputation for acting - have a reputation for acting swiftly in normal times made up of individual 27 countries but the oppression of russia in ukraine is definitely focusing minds here so ursula von der leyen was referring to how the eu is working on now third sanction package in a week. she w
barrels of oil from the collective strategic petroleum reserves to try to cap the impact on gas prices. to try to blunt that impact. standing up for freedom has a cost. standing up for democracy does have a cost. but we have designed the sanctions specific lee to impose damage on the russian economy without much blowback damage on ours. that s what we ve tried to do with the sanction package. ron, every sort of public utterance about our approach in ukraine is couched in something that interests to our defensiveness. we had to do it but freedom isn t free. zelenskyy has dealt with two american presidents, one held congressionally approved military assistance with a country at war. the other is ushered in historic sanctions and has brought switzerland and germany to places that they haven t been. do you envision getting yourself on offense domestically on the question of president biden s do a ship of foreign policy? look, i don t think nicole i don t think same freedom is