Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin accused the Russian military of targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in Ukraine.
Austin, who participated in a press conference on Thursday alongside Slovakian Defense Minister Jaroslav Nad, said the attacks “we’ve seen most recently appear to be focused directly on civilians,” though he stopped short of accusing Russian forces of war crimes.
He did specify that “purposely” targeting civilians “is a crime,” but he added, “Certainly we’ve all been shocked by the brutality we continue to witness day in and day out.”
The State Department is reviewing attacks to determine whether these actions reach the criteria of war crimes, he said. The State Department and White House have also previously declined to accuse Russia explicitly of war crimes in Ukraine, though they repeatedly have noted, as Austin did, that the intentional targeting of civilians is a violation. U.N. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield has also referred to Putin’s attacks on Ukrainian civilians as “war crimes.”
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President Joe Biden called Putin “a war criminal” on Wednesday, while the Kremlin called the characterization “unacceptable and unforgivable.”
Over the course of the three weeks, Russia has fired more than 900 missiles at or from Ukraine, according to a senior U.S. defense official, while the United Kingdom’s Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that this is likely more than they were planning on expending, and as a result, they have been forced to use “older, less precise weapons,” putting civilian lives at risk.
Many of the most gruesome reports of civilians being targeted have taken place in Mariupol, a southern port city on the coast of the Sea of Azov.
Russian forces shelled a local maternity hospital last week where at least 17 women and staff members were injured and three people died. This was one of 18 attacks on health facilities, personnel, and ambulances that have been “verified” in Ukraine, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.
More recently, Russian forces bombed a Mariupol theater where “more than 1,000 people” were taking refuge and a “majority stayed alive after bombing,” Iuliia Mendel, a Ukrainian journalist and former spokeswoman for President Volodymyr Zelensky, said Thursday.
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Mariupol’s City Council decried the attack, referring to it as an act of “genocide of the Ukrainian people.” Satellite images from Maxar Technologies taken on Monday show the Mariupol theater before the Russian airstrike and the word “children” is visible, written in large white letters in Russian, in front of and behind the building.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported on Tuesday that there have been 726 civilians killed, while another 1,174 have been wounded. Roughly 50 children were among those who have been killed. The U.N. International Organization for Migration said the number of refugees eclipsed that 3 million marker on Tuesday.
