President Barack Obama speaks Thursday about the economy, Iraq and Ukraine at the White House before convening a meeting with his national security team on the militant threat in Syria and Iraq. The president says Russia will likely face more sanctions for its actions in Ukraine, but gave no indication of any military action.

WASHINGTON — Faced with deepening crises in the Middle East and Ukraine, President Barack Obama is putting the brakes on the notion that American military power can solve either conflict.

While that stance is in keeping with Obama’s long-standing aversion to military entanglements, it comes at a time when the effectiveness of his preferred options is being challenged and there are indications that some in the administration are ready to take more robust actions.

In the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, Obama has relied largely on coordinated U.S. and European Union sanctions to try to shift Russian President Vladimir Putin’s calculus. While the White House can claim credit for inflicting some pain on Russia’s economy, Putin appears to be only getting more aggressive, with Ukrainian officials accusing Russia of sending two military columns across the border Thursday.

During a news conference at the White House, Obama warned Russia likely will face more Western penalties because of its continued provocations. But he offered no indication that he was considering anything outside the realm of sanctions and explicitly ruled out the prospect of U.S. military intervention.

“We are not taking military action to solve the Ukrainian problem,” Obama said.

The president did authorize limited airstrikes earlier this month to go after Islamic State militant targets in Iraq. But the discussion quickly shifted to whether the strikes should extend into Syria.

Obama at first seemed to largely rule out that option, a decision that came as little surprise, given his long opposition to plunging the U.S. military into Syria, a country ravaged by civil war. But staying out of Syria got more complicated after the extremists announced last week that they had killed American journalist James Foley and threatened to kill additional U.S. hostages.

Obama said Thursday that he was weighing the prospect of military action in Syria, but he tamped down any suggestion that such a move was imminent.