US Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday warned that Russia would be made to pay “serious and severe costs” if it invades Ukraine. Harris’ warning came hours after US President Joe Biden suggested that Moscow would be met with a with a relatively meek response for “minor incursions” into Ukrainian territory.

Vice President Harris’ warning came at NBC’s show, ‘Today’, after President Biden said earlier that the response of US and its NATO allies in the event on an incursion into Ukraine would “depend on what it [Russia] does.”

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“It’s one thing if it’s a minor incursion, and then we end up having a fight about what to do and what not do, etc. But if they actually do what they’re capable of doing with the force they’ve massed on the border, it is going to be a disaster for Russia,” President Biden had said earlier, hinting that a US response to a “minor incursion” would perhaps not be severe.

Biden’s remarks, which raised several eyebrows, was followed by a hasty statement of clarification from White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who said, “[i]f any Russian military forces move across the Ukrainian border, that’s a renewed invasion, and it will be met with a swift, severe, and united response.”

Yet, NBC host Savannah Guthrie seemed unconvinced, and asked Harris, “Did the president essentially give the green light to Vladimir Putin to take a piece of Ukraine, to take a bite out of Ukraine?”

“Let’s be clear, because there are 100,000 Russian troops amassed at the border with Ukraine and people there are hanging on the president’s every word. Is there any amount of land that Russia could take that the president would allow, turn a blind eye to, not issue those ‘severe sanctions’ he’s been threatening for that massive, full-scale invasion?,” the host further asked the Vice President.

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Harris, however, downplayed the Guthrie’s concerns, saying, “Our interpretation of any country — in this case, Russia and Vladimir Putin — denying or violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine will be interpreted as aggressive action…and it will be met with a cost, a severe cost. Period.”

When the host did not seem convinced, the Vice President insisted, “I will repeat myself and I’m Vice President of the United States, and the President and I work closely together and I know his position because he has been consistent in that regard. If Vladimir Putin and Russia takes aggressive action, it will be met with a cost that will be severe.”