EXCLUSIVE: Can President Putin be Deterred From Invasion?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: It’s really, really interesting. Foreign Minister of Lithuania, thank you so much indeed for joining us. Now, many experts say that this could be the darkest day for Europe in the free world since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and certainly, the most serious peril to confront us since the end of the Cold War. So, again, how will Putin be deterred? Ursula von der Leyen is the president of the European Commission and she’s joining me now from Brussels where they have also laid out and starting to announce a round of sanctions. Thank you and welcome back to this program at a moment of high crisis. Can I first ask you what I have asked all my other guests, is this an invasion? Do you at the E.U. at the highest levels define what Russia has done as an invasion of Ukraine?

URSULA VON DER LEYEN, PRESIDENT, EUROPEAN COMMISSION: At moment, being itself, it is not a military invasion, but it is a serious breach of international law. The recognition of Donetsk and Luhansk as independent and it is violating the sovereignty and the integrity of Ukraine. And, therefore, we have agreed we as the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada to start with a package of robust sanctions that we will deliver today here in the European Union and our friends too.

AMANPOUR: I’m going to get to those precise sanctions in a moment, but can you explain to me why you don’t call it an invasion or a reinvasion? There are troops and military hardware that have crossed a border from one country into another.

VON DER LEYEN: So, what we see is that Donetsk and Luhansk has been occupied since almost eight years now. And for us, it’s important that we closely watch the actions of Russia and we respond to the actions of Russia. Russia is responsible for this crisis. Russia is responsible for the escalation. And therefore, our sanctions package, the first one we are delivering now is well calibrated but we are also very clear if there’s any further military action against Ukraine that we see there will be a massive and robust second package that is coming. It is well prepared. Since weeks, we have been working on it. It is an unprecedented cooperation with the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada and us, and this is very clear that Russia will have to pay a price, and it is President Putin who will have to explain to his people why he’s putting this enormous price on them.