ウィスパリング同時通訳研究会コミュの02/23/22: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jen Psaki

MS. PSAKI: Hi, everyone. Happy Wednesday. Are we Wednesday? Yes. Okay. We have a graphic here today because it’s been awhile since we’ve had a graphic, so I wanted to deliver on that.

So, as you all know, we announced our first tranche of sanctions in less — less than a day after the beginning of the invasion, with Allies and partners from the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, and Australia.

And what I — we wanted to provide to all of you today is an overview of what we’re seeing as an impact on the Russian economy. Obviously, the bite of these sanctions has not taken place yet, so this is largely in anticipation.

So, let me just go through a couple of these points:

Borrowing costs for the Russian government has spiked to almost 11 percent — highest since 2015.

Foreign investors are fleeing Russia.

The Ruble is trading at its weakest level since November 2020 — one of the weakest currencies in the world.

In response to inflation risk, the Russian Central Bank has hiked rates eight times in the past year to 9.5 percent.

And Bloomberg reported — just going to cite Bloomberg there — that “The fortunes of Russia’s super-rich have tumbled $32 billion this year, with the escalating conflict in Ukraine poised to make that wealth destruction much larger.”

So, as I started off saying, this is before the bite even takes place. And this is just after the beginning. I mean, we’ve only had, obviously, a first tranche here. But it’s — this is a vicious feedback loop that will get more severe if Putin doesn’t escalate [deescalate].

So, as he’s looking at the impact on his own economy, on his rich and wealthy oligarch friends, and on the people of Russia, these are the facts, regardless of what you’re hearing from the Kremlin, about the impact.

Also, I just wanted to note, because I know that we put out these sanctions when a lot was happening yesterday — just wanted to give you a little bit more detail of them. Obviously, you, hopefully, have seen the announcement and the statement from the President about Nord Stream 2. We can come back to that, but that is an additional step today.

And also, on banks and the announcement we made yesterday, what we did was we used our most powerful sanctions tool to target two major state-owned Russian banks for the first time; that is the significance. These banks can no longer — what it means is they can no longer make any transactions with the United States or Europe, and their assets in the financial system will be frozen.

They are the glorified piggybanks — some of the glorified piggybanks for the Kremlin, including one of them which is a key financial institution where — where support — military finances has been held. And this will have a significant impact on Russian leadership and the inner circle because they’re state-owned control — banks controlled by them.

We also were clear yesterday — but again, there was a lot going on, so I just wanted to touch on this — on this lightly — that no financial institution is safe. And the authority that was announced yesterday means that we can expand this to other financial institutions in Russia. And we have every capability and capacity to do that.

Second, we made an announcement about sovereign debt. And essentially, this means — I know there’s been a lot of — some commentary out there — some from Russia, of course — that they have a rainy-day fund. A rainy-day fund is limited. A rainy-day funds mean you can only tap into it until the rainy-day fund is done.

The ability to purchase sovereign debt means that you can gain access to additional funding. And what we are essentially doing is cutting off their ability to — to tap into that from the United States and Europe.

Finally, on elites, what is significant about this — and somebody asked me this question about what’s different. So, some of the people who were sanctioned yesterday are repeat people that we have sanctioned in the past. But the additional step we took was that we sanctioned family members, because what we’ve seen in terms of tactics that they’ve used in the past, is they have moved — they’re very sophisticated, some of these oligarchs; no surprise — they’ve moved money around to children, to family members so they could still have access to it. And we wanted to reduce the likelihood of that. So that is an additional step we took. So I just wanted to cover that.

One other note: Today also marks 100 days since the President signed the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Time flies. It’s also day 400 of the administration. In the past 100 days, we’ve hit the ground running, rolling out nearly $100 billion worth of programs and funding to state and local governments.

This funding will help rebuild crumbling road and bridges, replace lead pipes, help provide high-speed Internet to every family in America, and produce concrete results that change people’s lives for the better.

To continue this momentum, today, the Department of Transportation announced nearly $450 million available to strengthen port infrastructure and supply chain resiliency. And, obviously, there is more to come.

Chris, your first day in the AP seat.

Q Yes.

MS. PSAKI: Welcome to the front of the room. No pressure.

Q Thank you very much. So a few questions about Ukraine. First, you talked about the impact of the economy on Russia. Ukraine is also feeling a lot of economic pain right now. What more is the White House prepared to do to shore up their economy, provide them with financial assistance?

MS. PSAKI: Well, we have provided them an extensive amount of financial assistance, including recently announcing $1 billion in sovereign — I mean in loan guarantees. And that is something we are open to building upon.

And we are going to continue to assess what the impact is on the Ukrainian economy, what is needed on the ground. That applies to both access to — to, you know, economic assistance, as well as humanitarian assistance.

So, I don’t have anything to announce today, but we will continue to be a large provider and supporter of financial and economic assistance to Ukraine.

Q A new AP poll found that only 26 percent of Americans want the U.S. to play a major role in this — in this crisis. Given that this could increase costs on Americans — gas prices, other economic ripples — has the White House done enough to prepare Americans for what the U.S. role could be and what impact it could be on their lives?

MS. PSAKI: Well, this is very important to the President personally. It’s why he gave remarks — delivered the remarks he did last week and why he has spoken several times to provide updates to the American people over the last couple of days.

Two pieces I would note that I think are very important as Americans are tuning in and learning more about this conf- — this potential conflict — this conflict that’s underway, I guess I should say, between Russia and Ukraine:

One, the President has no intention of sending U.S. military or U.S. troops to fight in Ukraine. It is hard to know — because I don’t think it was in your poll — how people assess what “major involvement” means. But that has not changed in terms of the President’s view and his approach.

Second is he is going to do everything he can to reduce the impact on energy costs for the American people. And that means engaging closely with partners around the world. It means considering a range of options that are all on the table to reduce the market — the impact on the oil markets, and that is what would impact energy costs.

But the last thing I would say is that the President and the White House — you know, we make national security decisions based on what’s best for our country’s national security, not on the latest polling. And if you step back, what, hopefully, the American people will see and have seen is that while Russia has sought to divide our allies and the American people, the President has sought to revitalize our partnerships and alliances and unite our country. He’s standing up for our national security interests and bedrock democratic values against the aggression of a dictator threatening to further invade a sovereign country.

That’s why he’s doing what he’s doing. So, we’re less focused on the politics of Ukraine and more focused on preventing a war.

Q The other question —

MS. PSAKI: Oh, go ahead.

Q — I have was: Yesterday, the administration said the goal of the sanctions is to “prevent and deter” a wider invasion of Ukraine. If Russia does attack, as U.S. officials are warning that they’re imminently prepared to do, does that mean that strategy has failed?

MS. PSAKI: Well, I would say as we look at it, we’re focused on accomplishing two things. One is implementing serious costs for the actions that have already been taken — so, the actions in the Donbas. And we’ve taken steps beyond what we did in 2014, which, obviously, I just outlined at the beginning of the briefing.

Second, yes, deterrence is part of our objective. If he goes further, we will go further. We have a range of tools at our disposal. I mentioned some of the potential financial step — or steps we could take that could impact financial institutions. That is — is very significant and could have a very significant impact, but we have far more options beyond that, including export controls.

And what export control steps would mean — you know, Russia — as President Putin looks to the future of Russia, there is a lot of access to different industries, technologies that he needs and would rely on in order for the economy to grow and flourish in the future, whether it’s AI, whether it’s other technological sectors, biotech, semiconductors — a term we’ve used a lot in here. And what this would do, would essentially cut off access to that; that would also be a significant step.

So, point is: We have more steps we can take, and we’re going to continue to apply those if he escalates.

Go ahead.

Q Thanks, Jen. Given the possibility of an attack seems particularly high today, can you walk us through how the President is spending his day, how his security team is spending the day, if they’re doing anything in these — what could be these final hours before an attack, if that’s the case?

MS. PSAKI: Well, I — I’ve seen the reporting on this. But let me — let me be very clear: We have been saying for days that Russian military forces are in an attack position; that has not changed. They are capable of operationalizing at any point in time. We are in constant contact with the Ukrainians about their positioning, about their capacity and capabilities. We’re not predicting a day, a moment, or an hour. That has been our assessment and the — what we’ve been communicating with the Ukrainians for some time now.

Let me tell you, though, something else that we’re also seeing or assessing right now: We believe — obviously, we’ve laid out a game plan that we believe that President Putin has been implementing over the course of the last several weeks, if not longer.

It’s clear — and what our assessment is, is that President Putin did not expect the United States to have the level of information that we have, did not expect us to put out this amount of information that we have put out, did not expect the global community to be as unified, including in the — how unified the global community was in putting out the sanctions yesterday. And what we’re seeing now — our assessment is that he is improvising, adapting, and we’re having to respond and adapt his own actions to — as we are even — as we are responding to him.

So, we don’t have a new assessment. I will tell you that what the President is doing is what he has been doing for several days now, which is continuing to meet and engage with his national security team.

Obviously, he had a PDB this morning, and he will receive regular updates from his team. He will continue to engaze [sic] clo- — engage closely with partners and Allies, some things that he — something that he has been doing for several days now. But that is cont- — the continuation of what our engagement has been.

Q So, given that we could be looking at an imminent attack, is there anything this White House, this President believes he can do to stop it?

MS. PSAKI: Well, I think — what I — I think what’s important to note here is we have been saying “imminent” for days now. And what I’m conveying to you is that we’re also seeing adjustments by President Putin or the need to adapt in response to what our actions and what our response has been.

So, what the President has been doing has cont- — has been continuing to work with partners and Allies to ensure we remain united, to leave the door open to diplomacy, but to make very clear to President Putin and to our partners around the world that there will be significant consequences beyond what we have done already should he invade further.

Go ahead, Jeff.

Q Jen, what’s the next trigger point for new sanctions? Obviously, yesterday’s was the start of the invasion.

MS. PSAKI: Mm-hmm.

Q What does Putin have to do next to see another wave?

MS. PSAKI: I’m not — I’m not going to give you a detailed, “If he does this, we will do that.” I would only just reiterate what I said a little bit earlier, which is that we have the specific authority, based on the announcement made yesterday, to take additional steps as it relates to financial institutions in Russia. There’s additional enormous financial institutions — the two largest banks, for example — which were not a part of the announcement made — we made yesterday. There’s additional steps we’ve expressed an openness to, including taking steps as it relates to export controls.

So, this — these are assessments we will continue to make internally. And we have a range of tools that we are prepared to — steps we are prepared to take should he further escalate.

Q On Monday, when President Putin made clear that he was sending troops into those two breakaway regions, the White House initially said that does not constitute an invasion because Russia already has troops there; this is just “more overt.” The next day, President Biden came out and said, “This is the start of invasion.” What happened overnight? What changed to lead to that change in rhetoric?

MS. PSAKI: Well, I talked about this a little bit yesterday, but what we looked at and what we assessed were a range of steps. I’m not, obviously, going to get into military assessments or movements today, just like I didn’t yesterday. But we looked at a couple of steps, including President Putin taking steps, as it relates to the Duma, to ask for authority to take additional military action beyond that region. We looked at his recognition. We looked at the position — positioning of troops and military. And we looked at the range of steps over that period of time to assess and make that decision.

I would also note that our Deputy National Security Advisor was on TV conveying that that morning as well.

Q All right. And just lastly on this: The President of Russia, President Putin, said on Monday that he felt the West was going to impose sanctions basically regardless of what they did. Given that, you’re obviously trying and effectively putting a lot of pain on the Russian economy. Do you think these sanctions will actually be a deterrent?

MS. PSAKI: Well, I think that is a decision for President Putin to make. I mean, there are statements he has conveyed, in terms of what he wants to achieve here, right? The division of NATO; the opposite is happening. Right? He wanted to see Nord Stream 2 move forward — a key prize for him; that is obviously not happening. He wants to have a flourishing economy for the Russian people; just even without the bite of our sanctions, that is clearly not happening.

So, this is an assessment he’s going to have to make, and we expect he’ll hear from people around him who are being impacted and other people in Russia about the impact of these sanctions.

Go ahead.

Q Does the White House share the assessment of the Australian Prime Minister today that an attack is likely within 24 hours?

MS. PSAKI: I’m not going to give an additional timeline to it. We’ve been saying it could happen at any time. And they are in attack position for some time now, but I’m not going to give you an additional day, hour, moment.

Q Well, just to follow up on that, you have been saying that it’s imminent for some time. You guys stopped for a little bit —

MS. PSAKI: Yeah.