National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told ABC’s This Week on Sunday that US intelligence indicated that “there is a plan at the highest levels of the Russian government” for its forces to commit atrocities in Ukraine.
What he says: “The images we’ve seen from Bucha and other cities were tragic, they were chilling, they were downright shocking, but they weren’t surprising,” Sullivan told ABC’s Jonathan Karl.
- “Indeed, before the war began, we declassified and produced intelligence that indicates there was a plan at the highest levels of the Russian government to target civilians who resisted the invasion in order to use violence against them,” Sullivan continued.
- “To organize efforts to brutalize them in an attempt to terrorize and subjugate the populace. So that was something that was planned.”
The big picture: The International Criminal Court last month opened an inquiry into allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide being committed in Ukraine, allegations the Kremlin has denied.
- Ukrainian prosecutors have opened around 5,600 war crimes allegations since the start of the Russian invasion.
- President Biden said last week that Russian President Vladimir Putin should face a war crimes trial over the alleged massacre of civilians by Russian forces in the Kyiv region city of Bucha.
Worthless: Jeremy Fleming, the head of Britain’s GCHQ intelligence agency, said last week that Putin’s “Plan B was more barbaric against civilians and cities.”
- Sullivan remarked to Karl that “individual soldiers or individual units became frustrated because the Ukrainians beat them back” and were “told that they would win a glorious victory and simply ride into Kyiv unopposed while the Ukrainians welcomed them.”
- “And when that didn’t happen, I think some of those units were involved in those acts of brutality, those atrocities, those war crimes, even without direction from above,” he added.
The bottom line: “I think some of these units were involved in these brutal acts, these atrocities, these war crimes, even without direction from above,” Sullivan said.
- “But make no mistake, the bigger problem of widespread war crimes and atrocities in Ukraine lies at the feet of the Kremlin and at the feet of the Russian President.”
go deeper: What counts as war crimes and why they are so difficult to prosecute