CLEVELAND — President Joe Biden wants all Americans in Ukraine to get out while it's still safe to do so.
Business law professor Juscelino Colares from Case Western Reserve University said this is a high stakes game being played by Russian President Vladimir Putin with the goal of breaking up NATO and rebuilding the Russian empire.
Right now, Russia has Ukraine surrounded on three sides with 150,000 troops.
Russia claims its started to draw some of those troops back, but the U.S. hasn't been able to confirm that and even though Russia's indicated it's still open to diplomacy, Colares said that Putin has time to draw this out and see how good of a deal he can get from the west.
"He knows that the ground was going to be frozen for a while. So that's not going to interfere with his sending the tanks, tanks are not going to have to mess with mud and other obstacles that they're probably going to face," Colares said.
Biden said the U.S. and its allies are prepared to impose "powerful new sanctions" but Colares said now is the time to enact them and not just threaten them.
Colares warned that if we don't keep Russia from invading Ukraine, Putin will have no reason to stop there.
"As we know with Hitler, as we know the Japanese empire in World War II, once they start this business of invading countries and enlarging their perceptions of their dreamed empires, they don't tend to stop until they are defeated," Colares said.
Colares said a war between Russia and Ukraine could further disrupt supply chains and economic relations.
