The White House has suggested that Vladimir Putin using chemical weapons in Ukraine is not a ‘red line’ for the United States and that the U.S. Military will not have boots on the ground in the Ukraine .
Speaking on Thursday, March 10, White House press secretary Jen Psaki suggested that the U.S. president had no “intention” of directly intervening in the two-week-old war between Ukraine and Russia.
US officials have expressed concern that Russia could use chemical weapons after the Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine could make such a move, in what U.S. officials say could be a false flag operation to justify any moves by Moscow.
Officials of Russia and Ukraine met on Thursday in Turkey – but left the negotiation table with no ceasefire in place nor an agreement for safe passage for Ukrainian civilians caught in the war zone.
‘I’m not going to get into red lines from here,’ Psaki said from her podium in the White House briefing room.
‘I’m not going to get into hypotheticals,’ she noted. ‘But the president’s intention of not sending U.S. military to fight in Ukraine against Russia has not changed.’
Psaki noted that American concerns Moscow would use chemical weapons is based on past incidents. U.S. officials have raised the possibility Russia could escalate the fighting as Ukrainian resistance remains strong.
‘They have a history of using chemical and biological weapons, and that in this moment, we should have our eyes open for that possibility use of chemical or biological weapons,’ Psaki said.
She said the administration was trying ‘to prevent a World War Three.’
‘We have not let anything go unanswered that President Putin has done to date,’ Psaki noted, adding ‘what that would look like I can’t give you an assessment of that from here at this point.’
The White House has said the move to supply anti-tank missiles to Ukraine was not meant to be aggressive against Russia. The Biden administration repeatedly said it doesn’t want to start a war with Russia, using that as its reason to oppose Poland’s plan to supply the Ukraine with Polish-owned MiG planes.
‘I think, for people to understand how we look at this, which is that there’s an escalation ladder, right,’ Psaki explained. ‘And there’s difference between an anti tank weapon, a shoulder fired missile, and aircraft and a fighter jet that could cross the border and actually conduct operations on Russian soil.’
