Joe Biden on Thursday announced a fresh round of what he said would be crippling sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, declaring that Vladimir Putin “chose this war” and that he and his country will bear the consequences.

The sanctions target Russia’s largest banks and companies, cutting them off from western financial markets, while imposing export controls and sanctioning Russian oligarchs and their families.

“Putin is the aggressor. Putin chose this war,” the US president said. “And now he and his country will bear the consequences.”

Taken together, Biden said the measures taken by the US and allied nations around the world were meant to “maximize a long-term impact” on Russia, extracting severe costs on Moscow immediately and over time for what Biden called its “brutal assault” on a sovereign nation.

Biden warned that Putin’s “quest for empire” extended beyond Ukraine, saying the Russian leader sought to re-create the former Soviet Union.

But the president was emphatic in his vow that US troops would not engage Russia in Ukraine, but he again affirmed the US would defend “every inch of Nato territory”. The commitment was underscored by an announcement that Biden had authorized the deployment of additional US troops to Germany.

As Biden addressed the nation from the East Room of the White House, the Ukrainian government reported mounting casualties as Russian troops unleashed a punishing offensive on the nation, advancing on the nation’s capital, Kyiv.

Biden’s remarks came hours after he held a virtual meeting with the leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Italy and Japan. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, European Council president Charles Michel, and Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg were also in attendance. Earlier on Thursday, he convened a meeting of the US national security council.

The penalties come a day after the White House unveiled an initial “tranche” of sanctions in response to Putin’s recognition of two breakaway republics in east Ukraine. The sanctions announced on Thursday aim to further destabalize Russia’s financial system while starving the county of technology critical to its economy and military.

The US Treasury said the latest round of sanctions against Russia would impact nearly 80% of all banking assets in the country, fundamentally threatening the Russian economy and weakening the Kremlin’s geopolitical posture.

“Treasury is taking serious and unprecedented action to deliver swift and severe consequences to the Kremlin and significantly impair their ability to use the Russian economy and financial system to further their malign activity,” said Janet Yellen, the Treasury secretary.

Biden said the purpose of the sanctions was to limit “Russia’s ability to do business in dollars, euros, pounds and yen to be part of the global economy”.

But they are not as forceful as some elected officials in the US and Ukraine have called for, steps that would include removing Russia from the Swift international banking system and targeting Russia’s energy sector or leveling sanctions against Putin personally.

“We demand the disconnection of Russia from Swift, the introduction of a no-fly zone over Ukraine and other effective steps to stop the aggressor,” the Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a tweet.

On Thursday, congressman Adam Schiff, the chairman of the House intelligence committee, called on the US to “dramatically escalate” its response to Moscow and endorsed calls to remove Russia from the international banking system and its ability to access western capital.

Biden argued that time was needed to the current round of sanctions to take their desired effect, and said the US was “prepared” to impose more severe penalties on Russia.

The president defended his administration’s response. For several weeks, the US has declassified and made public Putin’s secret plans, while moving quickly to blame Russia for a series of cyber-attacks against Ukrainian banks and agencies. The purpose of the approach was to expose the Kremlin’s justification for war as baseless, he said.

“Now, it’s unfolding largely as we predicted,” the president said.

Asked by reporters whether he was consulting China to isolate Russia, Biden would not comment. He also said he was working to persuade India to join the western-led push against Russia.

Biden said he had no plans to talk to Putin.

The US president also urged resolve among the American people, who he said would likely face economic consequences as a result of what Biden called Putin’s “naked aggression”. The US has also warned government agencies and operators of critical infrastructure to take pre-emptive actions to safeguard against a potential Russian cyber-attack.

In a stark contrast to Donald Trump, who has repeatedly assailed Biden while badly mangling the facts surrounding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Barack Obama called on “every American, regardless of party” to support the president’s efforts to punish the Kremlin.

Echoing Biden, Obama acknowledged that there would likely be economic consequences for Americans, but that it was a “price we should be willing to pay to take a stand on the side of freedom.”

As Biden has warned throughout his presidency, he said democracies around the world were being tested and threatened by Putin’s “sinister vision for the future of our world”. He said there was never a question that the US would respond to Russia’s assault on Ukraine.

“This aggression cannot go unanswered,” Biden said. “America stands up to bullies. We stand up for freedom. This is who we are.”