President Biden and fellow Western leaders have a full plate today:
U.S. President Joe Biden and Western allies opened the first of three summits Thursday focused on increasing pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin over his war in Ukraine while tending to the economic and security fallout spreading across Europe and the world. [snip]
Over the course of Thursday, the European diplomatic capital is hosting an emergency NATO summit as well as a gathering of the Group of Seven industrialized nations and a summit of the 27 members of the European Union. Biden will attend all three meetings and plans to hold a news conference at the end of the day.
Biden arrived here late Wednesday with the hopes of nudging allies to enact new sanctions on Russia, which has already seen its economy crippled by a steady stream of bans, boycotts and penalties over the past four weeks.
While the West has been largely unified in confronting Russia after it invaded Ukraine, there’s wide acknowledgement that unity will be tested as the costs of war chip at the global economy.
Additional sanctions on Russia and bolstering the military presence on NATO's eastern flank are top on the agenda, as are embedded issues concerning European energy supplies and the ballooning humanitarian crisis of millions of refugees/ displaced Ukrainians. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is expected to address the NATO summit as well.
More details on the range of issues to be covered at the link.
UPDATE:
NEW U.S. sanctions deployed today
— Phil Mattingly (@Phil_Mattingly) March 24, 2022
-328 Duma Members, Duma as an entity
-Sberbank CEO Herman Gref
-Gennady Timchenko + family members
-47 Russian defense companies
-17 board members of Sovcombank
(Photo: NATO summit attendees/ John Thys, AFP, Getty Images, via HuffPo)
