VIDEO: Watch Joe Biden's White House Speech On Russia - Ukraine Conflict

President Joe Biden on Thursday announced that the U.S. would be imposing a new round of sanctions on Russia after President Vladimir Putin launched a nationwide military assault on Ukraine.

In an address from the White House, Biden denounced the Russian military operation as a “brutal assault on the people of Ukraine" and accused Putin of executing a "premeditated attack" on Ukraine. As a result, the U.S. would be initiating a new set of financial sanctions aimed at crippling the Russian economy.

“Putin is the aggressor. Putin chose this war. And now he and his country will bear the consequences,” Biden proclaimed in his address.

(Below is a video of Biden's speech from the White House, as well as questions Biden answered from reporters.)

For weeks, the Biden administration has been weighing its options in responding to a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. On Tuesday, Biden initiated sanctions against two state-owned Russian banks in response to Putin’s move to recognize two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine as independent states.

Building on that move, Biden added sanctions on four more Russian banks that were not included in the first tranche of sanctions, including VTB, the country’s second-largest bank. These measures were announced together with tougher export controls and sanctions aimed at Russian oligarchs close to Putin.

Biden offered assurances that he would act to curb any steep rise in energy prices as a result of the war in Ukraine. To do this, he promised that his administration would release barrels of oil from national reserves to increase supplies to the market.

Biden announced that more U.S. troops would be headed to Europe as part of a wider effort to bolster NATO allies that are unsettled by Russia's advance on Ukraine. He repeated his earlier pledge that these forces would not be going into combat against the Russian military, but that Americans would defend "every inch" of the NATO alliance.

“This aggression cannot go unanswered. If it did, the consequences for America would be much worse. America stands up to bullies. We stand up for freedom. This is who we are,” said Biden.