Biden tells Yanukovych to quit and leave "or else"

Link to Biden's role in Ukraine coup

Biden's role on Ukraine underscores risks for his political future

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - As the bloodiest day of anti-government protests in Ukraine was drawing to a close last month, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called President Viktor Yanukovich for the second time in three days and delivered a blunt message.

Pull back your security forces now and accept a European-brokered settlement or you will be held accountable, Biden warned the pro-Russian leader. “It WILL catch up with you.”

Initially defiant, Yanukovich sounded subdued by the end of the hour-long call, according to a senior U.S. official knowledgeable of the conversation. Within hours, Yanukovich signed a deal with the opposition and then fled to Russia.

Whether Biden’s 11th-hour warning was decisive or merely served in a supporting role to European Union negotiators, his intensive telephone diplomacy illustrates the kind of troubleshooting that has become integral to his portfolio in President Barack Obama’s second term.

However, given the United States’ limited options in the Ukraine crisis after Russia seized the Crimea peninsula, Biden’s role as a loyal Obama adviser on foreign policy poses risks to his political future if he runs for president in 2016.

Biden would be unable to separate himself from the administration’s record on Ukraine if the West comes out on the losing end of its worst standoff with Moscow since the Cold War.

“He’s tied to Ukraine policy, no matter how it comes out, said Shirley Anne Warshaw, a presidential scholar at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. “So he could be vulnerable.”

Republican critics can also be expected to keep the heat on the administration - and by extension, Biden - for what they say is a foreign policy that has exposed U.S. weakness in issues like the Syrian civil war, Iran nuclear talks, Afghanistan and the growing military challenge from China.

Possible 2016 Democratic rival Hillary Clinton decided to stake out a hawkish stance on Russian President Vladimir Putin last week. In condemning Moscow’s Crimea incursion, she invoked Adolf Hitler’s actions leading up to World War Two.

Though Clinton said she was not making a direct comparison between the two men, the former secretary of state’s line of attack was at odds with the White House’s more cautious approach and made her look tough on Russia as she considers a possible presidential campaign.

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