This could prevent Putin from ordering an invasion

The head of the US House intelligence committee indicated on Sunday that Russia is “very likely” to attack Ukraine and may be prevented only by “enormous sanctions”.

Additionally, Adam Schiff stated that an invasion could backfire on Moscow by attracting new members to the Nato military alliance.

“I also think that a powerful deterrent is the understanding that if they do invade, it is going to bring Nato closer to Russia, not push it farther away,” he said.

On CBS’s Face the Nation, Schiff was asked what would prevent Putin from ordering an invasion.

“I think that it would require enormous sanctions on Russia to deter what appears to be a very likely Russian invasion of Ukraine again,” said Schiff.

“And I think our allies need to be solidly on board with it. Russia needs to understand we are united in this.”

According to him, an invasion would see “more Nato assets closer to Russia. [It] will have the opposite impact of what Putin is trying to achieve”.

Schiff said he had “no problem” with “going after Putin personally”, but thought “sector-sized sanctions will be the most important”.

When asked if he believed the upcoming talks had any possibility of preventing an invasion, he said: “I fear that Putin is very likely to invade. I still frankly don’t understand the full motivation for why now he’s doing this, but he certainly appears intent on it unless we can persuade him otherwise.

“And I think nothing other than a level of sanctions that Russia has never seen will deter him, and that’s exactly what we need to do with our allies.”

Image Credit: Getty

You were reading: Adam Schiff explains how to stop Russia from invading Ukraine