Harris stops short of calling for Putin's ouster
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris stopped short of calling for Russian President Vladimir Putin's ouster on Wednesday while urging for an end to the invasion of Ukraine.
"What we want is that the Ukrainian people will be free and that they will be safe. But we are now at a place where obviously Russia has yet again invaded Ukraine and we must stand in solidarity with our allies and make sure there are severe and swift consequences which is what we've been doing," Harris told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in an interview on "Good Morning America".
When asked whether there is anything more the United States and its allies could be doing, Harris argued that the actions taken thus far have already had an effect.
"We are seeing the impact of the work that we have done. We are seeing the ruble in a free fall. We are seeing the stock market in Russia has essentially closed. What we have seen is that the credit rating of Russia is now junk," she said. "So, what we know is that we're having an impact and we're taking it quite seriously."
When pressed again that Putin appears to be willing to take the cost and is not backing down, Harris insisted: "We're going to do everything that we can to support the Ukrainian people."
"We are doing that through our security assistance, through economic assistance, humanitarian assistance," she added. "We're not going to let up."
Harris dodged a question about whether about whether U.S. intelligence now suggests that Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, will fall to Russian forces.
"This is Putin's war, and we are very concerned and we are monitoring it," she said. "We are fully aware that if there's any intentional targeting of civilians, that we are looking at the fact that there may be a violation, very well may be a violation of international law. So this is an issue that we should all be paying attention to. It is atrocious and it is a violation of all of the standards and principles that we as particularly NATO nations take seriously."
-ABC News Sarah Kolinovsky and Kelly McCarthy