President Joe Biden on Tuesday afternoon unveiled a ‘first tranche’ of sanctions on Russia after acknowledging that Russian President Vladimir Putin has laid a ‘rationale to go much further’ in his invasion of Ukraine.

‘He’s setting up a rationale to go much further,’ Biden said from the White House. ‘This is the beginning of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.’

Biden announced sanctions on two Russian financial institutions, sovereign debt and the nation’s elites and their family.

‘Russia has now undeniably moved against Ukraine,’ Biden said. ‘Today, I’m announcing the first tranche of sanctions to impose costs on Russia.

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He said that ‘we’ll continue to escalate sanctions if Russia escalates’.

‘They share in the corrupt games of the Kremlin policies and should share in the pain as well,’ Biden added of the sanctions on the family members.

Biden acknowledged that the new sanctions could lead to higher gas prices for Americans and vowed to work to limit the impact at home.

‘Defending freedom will have costs for us as well and here at home,’ he said. ‘We need to be honest about that.’

Biden spoke hours after US principal deputy national security adviser Jon Finer officially referred to Russia’s troops deployment as an ‘invasion’ of Ukraine.

‘We think this is, yes, the beginning of an invasion, Russia’s latest invasion into Ukraine,’ Finer said on CNN’s New Day show. ‘An invasion is an invasion and that is what is underway.’

Finer added that sanctions the White House announced on Monday on the two pro-Russia separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk on Monday were just the ‘beginning’ of the US’s response.

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