Vice President Kamala Harris said on Saturday that the United States has determined that Russia committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine, insisting the perpetrators “must be brought to justice”.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Harris said the international community has both a moral and a strategic interest in pursuing those crimes, pointing to the danger of other authoritarian governments if international rules are undermined.
“Russian forces have carried out widespread and systematic attacks against a civilian population – gruesome acts of murder, torture, rape and deportation,” Harris said. He also cited “execution-style killings, beatings and electric shocks”.
The Biden administration formally determined last March that Russian troops committed war crimes in Ukraine and said it would work with others to prosecute the perpetrators. The determination of crimes against humanity goes a step further, indicating that attacks against civilians are being carried out in a widespread and systematic manner.
“Russian authorities have forcibly deported thousands of people, including children, from Ukraine back to Russia,” Harris said. “They have brutally separated children from their families.”
He also pointed to a mid-March attack on a theater in the strategic port city of Mariupol, where civilians were taking refuge, that killed hundreds, and images of civilian bodies left on the streets of Bucha. Was, ever since the Russian withdrawal. Kyiv region last spring.
Harris said that as a former prosecutor and former head of the California Department of Justice, she knows “the importance of gathering facts and putting them against the law.”
“In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt,” she said. “These are crimes against humanity.”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was also attending the Munich conference, said in a statement released after Harris spoke that “we reserve crimes against humanity for the most serious crimes.”
The new determination underscores the “stunning extent” of suffering suffered by Ukrainian citizens and also reflects the United States’ “deepening commitment to holding members of Russia’s military and other Russian officials accountable for their atrocities.” They said.
In an address to his country on Saturday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kiev had received “strong signals from our partners” this week on the imperative to hold Russia accountable for aggression, for terror against Ukraine and its people. specific agreement.”
“Every Russian attack … will have concrete legal consequences for the terrorist state on every corner of our territory,” Zelensky said, citing attacks not only in the last year of the war but in 2014, when Eastern There was fighting with Russian-backed separatists. Ukraine split first.
The president did not specifically mention Harris’ remarks or name any countries that had provided agreements on Russian accountability.
Russia’s nearly one-year invasion of Ukraine dominated discussions at the Munich conference, an annual gathering of security and defense officials from around the world. Harris told the assembled participants: “We all agree – on behalf of all victims, both known and unknown, justice must be served.”
“It is in our moral interest,” she said. “We also have an important strategic interest.”
If Russian President Vladimir Putin is successful in attacking international rules and norms, he said, “other authoritarian powers may seek to bend the world to their will through coercion, misinformation and even brute force.” Are.”
There were no Russian officials in Harris’ audience on Saturday. The organizers of the conference decided not to invite him this year.
While Western officials defended arms supplies to Ukraine, China’s top diplomat Wang Yi called for an end to the war through peace talks, saying Beijing was “deeply concerned about the escalation and long-term impact of this war”. Is.”
China has refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or impose sanctions on Moscow like Western countries. Without naming any countries, Wang said “there may be forces” that do not want the war to stop as soon as possible.
“What they care about is not the life and death of the Ukrainian people, nor the mounting damage in Europe. They probably have bigger strategic goals than Ukraine.
Asked on the sidelines of the event about US determination to commit crimes against humanity, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba replied that “Russia waged a genocidal war against Ukrainians because they do not recognize our identity and they do not think we deserve to exist as a sovereign.” Nation.”
“What stems from this are crimes against humanity, war crimes and many other atrocities committed by Russian forces on the territory of Ukraine,” he said. “In terms of legal merit let the lawyers specifically figure out which act pertains to where.”
In a video address to the conference on Friday, Zelensky urged Western allies to step up their military support for Ukraine.
Kuleba expressed confidence that Ukraine will eventually receive fighter jets from its partners, despite the current reluctance. He said he initially pushed back on providing other heavy weapons that were later delivered or promised.
German media reported that in Munich on Friday, a deputy prime minister of Ukraine, Oleksandr Kubrakov, demanded cluster munitions and phosphorus bombs. Cluster munitions are banned by an international treaty.
Asked whether he supports the demand for such weapons, Kuleba said Ukraine has evidence that Russia uses them.
“We are not party to the Convention on the Prohibition of Cluster Ammunition, so legally there is no obstacle to it,” he said. “And if we get one, we will use it exclusively against the military forces of the Russian Federation.”
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(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed)