Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops Monday to "maintain peace" in two separatist territories in eastern Ukraine shortly after recognizing the Russian-backed areas as independent, stoking fears that a Russian invasion could be underway.
The Kremlin decree signed by Putin did not specify whether or when Russian troops would enter Ukrainian territory. It came as President Joe Biden signed an executive order to sanction any Americans who invest in the eastern Ukraine regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, the two breakaway areas that Putin recognized as independent.
Putin's moves further inflamed tensions with the West amid fears of a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. A senior Biden administration official accused Putin of seeking to "justify war" during a rambling, hourlong speech in which he incorrectly claimed that Ukraine was only the product of power-brokering during the beginning of the Soviet Union.
Yet it was unclear whether Putin's "peacekeeping" operations in the eastern Donbas region would trigger the full-fledged “severe” sanctions that Biden has threatened if Putin invades Ukraine.
The U.S. will "observe and assess" what Russia does next, the U.S. official said. But, the official said, “Russian...
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