Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday that the US is assessing that Russian forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine and will work to bring them to justice.
“Today I can announce that, based on the information currently available, the US government assesses that members of the Russian armed forces committed war crimes in Ukraine,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.
“We have seen numerous credible reports of indiscriminate attacks and attacks deliberately targeting civilians, as well as other atrocities,” Blinken said. “Russian forces have destroyed homes, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure, civilian vehicles, shopping malls and ambulances, killing or wounding thousands of innocent civilians. Many of the sites hit by Russian forces were clearly identifiable as in use civilians.”
Blinken cited reports of several incidents in besieged Mariupol, such as the bombing of a maternity hospital and a strike that hit a theater in Mariupol, which Blinken says is “clearly marked with the word ‘дети’ – Russian for ‘children’ – in large letters off the sky.”
Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, listens as US President Joe Biden, not pictured, speaks at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, on Wednesday, March 16, 2022. Biden outlined subsequent United States aid to Ukraine, an emotional appeal by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for Biden to lead the world in punishing Moscow for its invasion. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images Bloomberg
Blinken said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces used the same tactics in Grozny, Chechnya, and Aleppo, Syria, “where they increased their bombing of cities to break the will of the people.”
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, about 100,000 civilians remain in Mariupol, “in inhumane conditions, under a total blockade, without food, without water, without medicine and under constant fire, under constant fire,” he said in a video address on Tuesday.
“We are trying to organize stable humanitarian corridors for residents of Mariupol, but unfortunately almost all of our attempts are thwarted by Russian invaders, shelling or deliberate terror,” said Zelenskyy.
The foreign minister’s statement comes a day after the defense ministry said it had seen “clear evidence that the Russians have been deliberately and deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure for the last week or so.”
Blinken and President Biden are traveling to Brussels for a NATO summit on Ukraine on Wednesday. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Zelenskyy would address the world’s heads of state and government at an extraordinary alliance meeting in Brussels on Thursday.
On Friday they travel to Warsaw, Poland to meet with Polish President Andrzej Duda.
Mr Biden last week called Putin a “war criminal” for launching the attack in Ukraine.
Haley Ott and Kathryn Watson contributed to this report.
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