(NewsNation Now) — U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order Monday to prohibit Americans from doing business in two separatist-held regions in Ukraine. The news comes just hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree recognizing the regions in Ukraine as independent.
It’s unclear how the sanctions will have an impact on the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, but the decision to impose them is a clear indicator that the U.S. is not buying into Putin’s claim that he is open to resolving the current crisis through diplomatic means.
So what will Putin’s next move be?
“You’re going to see this slow, tick, tick, tick, build up until Vladimir Putin bites off … much of Ukraine,” NewsNation’s ‘On Balance” host Leland Vittert said during an appearance on “Rush Hour.”
According to Vittert, Putin’s latest move could allow Russia to claim an invasion is actually an attempt to protect the Russian people in those two regions.
“By declaring these areas independent, the Russian president now sets up a situation where he will say, ‘These ethnic Russians are in need of my protection,'” Vittert said. “And I, as the president of the Russian people will go send peacekeepers in to go protect them.”
Vittert made this prediction before Putin ordered “peacekeeping troops” to enter pro-Moscow claimed regions in eastern Ukraine. The U.S. and European allies are currently observing events on the ground.
Russian troops operating in these regions is not a new phenomenon, according to Vittert.
“These were the same kind of claims that went on in 2014 when I was there,” said Vittert, who covered the region firsthand when conflict first broke out. “And that’s what the Russians used to justify supporting these rebel groups and sending in their equivalents of the Green Berets — to help these Russian partisan militias.”
Vittert said there isn’t going to be a particular moment where we see tanks rolling in as an “official” invasion, but he believes that Russia will be the first to attack.
“The peacekeepers, (Russian forces) will then fire on the Ukrainian forces, the Ukrainian forces will fire back and now we have ourselves a ballgame, Vittert said.
With an estimated 190,000 Russian troops amassed along the border with Ukraine, U.S. officials have been warning for weeks that a Russian invasion could begin any moment.
In a statement Monday, U.S Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned Putin’s decision to recognize Donetsk and Luhansk as independent and said the declaration “represents a complete rejection of Russia’s commitments under the Minsk agreements.”
On Sunday, Biden agreed to meet with Putin “in principle”, but only if an invasion hasn’t happened. If it does, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told Fox News, there will be major consequences for Russia.
Watch the full interview with Leland Vittert in the video player at the top of the page.