Listening AlJazeera's video stream. Right now debriefing of the journos after the Biden-Puten video chat is going. I think the bloke talking is called Jake Sullivan.
He said the US won't tolerate "further invasion of Ukraine". This shit makes them look so weak.
>Yeah, Russia invaded the Ukraine occupied lands, we did nothing, but one more step we are assure everyone we will call that very problematic and we will be very concerned!
Ukraine is so fucked in this regard (too). It is axiomatic that war between nuclear powers is unimaginable (at the moment). So if they'd let Ukraine into NATO, that would shut down this whole thing, Ukraine wouldn't be threatened anymore. However they can't let Ukraine into the NATO, due to Crimea, since their stance is that it belongs to Ukraine, and they should make steps to recover it. It doesn't even matter that Ukraine might not want to give up Crimea for this stance they hold. Donbass also complicates things, since allowing Ukraine into NATO would mean take steps there, which would most likely mean fighting.
So US can only do such strict measures and steps, which mean little in practice.
And Putin can freely aggravate the situation and laugh.

The whole thing reminds me of China-Taiwan situation (one of the journos too drew parallel), where US can't acknowledge Taiwan officially, but still pretends to take serious action, and the whole thing is just sabre rattling.
In case of Taiwan there was some trade talks between the US and China, essentially the situation was exploited by both sides for these talks. Now this Ukraine thing is probably used in similar situation, maybe in relation to Nord Stream.

While I'm typing this Sullivan is still talking and he has nothing to offer to the journos, saying the same things over and over, and just talking gibberish.