The White House is still not calling for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ouster, despite President Joe Biden’s public support for a war crimes trial of Putin over Ukraine.
“We are not calling for regime change,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters Monday.
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But in Psaki’s next sentence, she said the U.S. perspective is that Putin “is a war criminal,” a State Department legal determination.
“He is somebody who should be looked at by the international system who evaluates war crimes,” she added.
Biden cited evidence that emerged after Russia’s withdrawal from Bucha, a city outside the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, to support his prior claim that Putin is a war criminal. He had been previously criticized for preceding the State Department ruling and appearing to back the Russian people booting Putin from power during his speech in Europe.
“We have to gather all the detail so this can be an actual … war crime trial,” Biden said this week. “This guy is brutal. What’s happening in Bucha is outrageous, and everyone’s seen it.”
Psaki, however, clarified that this week’s expected sanctions, levied in tandem with Group of 7 and European Union leaders against new Russian investments, financial institutions, and state-owned enterprises, as well as government officials and family members, are not solely because of Bucha.
Instead, the measures are only a response “in part” to Bucha because the discovery of mass graves and the bodies of civilians, suspected to have been tortured before they were killed, were not the first indications of war crimes, according to Psaki.
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“The financial system in Russia is near the brink of collapse,” she said. “It is more and more difficult for President Putin to fund this war every single day. That has an impact.”
