Closing summary
Thanks for joining us today. The White House press briefing just finished and we’re closing down the US politics blog now - back on Friday morning, Washington time – but you can follow developments in the Russia-Ukraine war on the Guardian’s 24-hour live news blog here.
Here’s what we followed today:
- The White House announced of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine that: “We have seen incontrovertible evidence that this has been a strategic disaster for Russia.”
- Joe Biden announced he was releasing 1m barrels daily from US oil reserves to lower gas prices, and announced new initiatives for energy independence and clean energy.
- The US president suggested that his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin was in some form of “self-isolation” and might have fired or arrested advisers who misled him over the Ukraine war.
- A $10bn bipartisan Covid-19 relief deal was struck in Congress, according to Republican senator Mitt Romney, but still faces hurdles.
- The House speaker Nancy Pelosi called for an human rights inquiry into Russia’s treatment of children in Ukraine, suggesting they were forcibly taken out of the country.
Updated
'Incontrovertible evidence that this [war] has been a strategic disaster for Russia' - White House
White House director of communications Kate Bedingfield is briefing the media now and said that there will be further sanctions on Russia as a result of its invasion of Ukraine just over a month ago - and also that the US has evidence the war is not going well from Moscow’s perspective.
“We have seen incontrovertible evidence that this has been a strategic disaster for Russia,” Bedingfield said a little earlier, as reported by journalists in the White House briefing room, including the Guardian’s Washington bureau chief, David Smith.
Bedingfield on Ukraine invasion: "We have seen incontrovertible evidence that this has been a strategic disaster for Russia."
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) March 31, 2022
Bedingfield also reiterated that the US needs to see tangible de-escalation of the war by Russia before it will consider any direct talks between Joe Biden and his counterpart, Russian president Vladimir Putin, and there are no plans for them to speak at this point.
Meanwhile, the US commerce department will impose further sanctions on Moscow in the coming days, targeting Russia’s defense, aerospace and maritime sectors, adding 120 entities from Russia and Belarus to its entity list, Bedingfield said.
That will bring the number of Russian and Belarusian parties added to the list to more than 200 since the invasion of Ukraine began, Reuters reports.
The White House believes sanctions are biting.
Bedingfield: "Putin himself has said these sanctions have imposed unprecedented costs on the Russian economy, And our role is to continue to strengthen Ukraine on the battlefield."
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) March 31, 2022
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