Biden signs executive order prolonging 'national emergency' Russian aggression poses to US

U.S. President Joe Biden signed an executive order on March 1 prolonging a "national emergency" in the U.S. with regards to the war in Ukraine for one year.

The first executive order was signed on March 6, 2014, by then President Barack Obama following Russia's annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in Donbas, which according to the White House, posed, by extension, an "unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."

Biden renewed the executive order on Feb. 21, 2022, after Russia recognized the occupied territories in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts as independent states. According to the White House, this was a contradiction of "Russia’s commitments under the Minsk agreements and further threatens the peace, stability, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Ukraine."

The executive orders also include sanctions related to Russia's actions in Ukraine that conflict with U.S. interests.