US President Joe Biden said the Russian war in Ukraine amounts to “genocide,” accusing President Vladimir Putin tried to “remove the idea even to Ukraine.”
Yes, I call it genocide,” he told reporters in Iowa shortly before raising one air force to return to Washington. “This becomes clearer and more clearly that Putin just tries to remove the idea even to Ukraine.”
At the previous event in Menlo, Iowa, handling the energy price stick produced from war, Biden had implied that he thought Putin did genocide against Ukraine, but did not offer detail. Both he or his government did not announce new consequences for Russia or assistance to Ukraine after Biden’s public assessment.
Biden’s comments pulled praise from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelskyy, who had encouraged Western leaders to use the term to describe the Russian invasion to his country.
The actual word of a true leader @potus,” he tweeted. “Calling things with their names is very important to fight crime. We thank the US assistance provided so far and we really need heavier weapons to prevent further Russian cruelty.”
The United Nations Agreement, which is a party, defines genocide as an action taken by “intention to destroy, overall or partially, national, ethnic, race or religious groups.”
American leaders who often dodge to officially declare a bloody campaign such as Russia in Ukraine as a genocide, hesitant to trigger an obligation under the international convention requiring formal signing countries formally identified. The obligation was seen as the blocking of President Bill Clinton from declaring the murder of Rwanda Hutus of 800,000 ethnic tutsis in 1994 as a genocide, for example.
Biden said it would depend on lawyers to decide whether Russian behavior meets international standards for genocide, as claimed by Ukrainian officials, but said, “it seems like that for me.”
More evidence comes out literally from the terrible things that Russia has done in Ukraine, and we will only learn more about destruction and let lawyers decide internationally whether they meet the requirements or not,” he said.
Only last week Biden, he did not believe Russian actions amounted to genocide, only they formed “war crimes.”
During the trip to Europe last month, Biden faced controversy for a nine-words statement that seemed to support the change in the regime in Moscow, which would represent a dramatic shift towards direct confrontation with other nuclear armed countries. “For God’s sake, this man cannot stay in power,” Biden said.
He clarified the comment a few days later, by saying: “I expressed the moral anger that I felt towards this man. I did not articulate policy changes.”
