The U.S. government believes Russian forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced on Wednesday.
Blinken’s statement comes days after the Pentagon announced the same conclusion: that amid four weeks of stalled Russian aggression, Russian soldiers have resorted to terrorizing and targeting civilians, which amounts to war crimes.
“We’ve seen numerous credible reports of indiscriminate attacks and attacks deliberately targeting civilians, as well as other atrocities,” he said in a statement, adding, “Today, I can announce that, based on information currently available, the U.S. government assesses that members of Russia’s forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine.”
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Without success in their invasion, Russian forces have “intensified their bombardment of cities to break the will of the people,” as they did in Grozny, Chechnya, and Aleppo, Syria, the secretary claimed.
“Russia’s forces have destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure, civilian vehicles, shopping centers, and ambulances, leaving thousands of innocent civilians killed or wounded,” Blinken added. “Many of the sites Russia’s forces have hit have been clearly identifiable as in-use by civilians.”
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said on Monday the Department of Defense has seen “clear evidence” that Russian forces have committed war crimes, while a senior U.S. defense official on Tuesday added that they had “deliberately and intentionally targeted civilian infrastructure, hospitals, and places of shelter.”
President Joe Biden referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “war criminal” last week.
The U.S. assessment is “based on a careful review of available information,” and it will “continue to track reports of war crimes and will share information we gather with allies, partners, and international institutions and organizations as appropriate.” Its conclusion is an allegation of a crime, while a court with jurisdiction will determine whether war crimes actually occurred. Blinken concluded that the United States is “committed to pursuing accountability using every tool available, including criminal prosecutions.”
The residents of the port city of Mariupol, which is strategically located between Crimea, which the Russians invaded back in 2014, and the Donbas territory, where fighting between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainians has persisted for years, have faced some of the most horrific acts of war. Russians still have not been able to conquer the city.
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In Mariupol, Russian forces shelled a maternity hospital, bombed a theater there that had been serving as a shelter, even though they had spelled out the word “children” in Russian on the front and back of the facility, and most recently, Russians bombed a school housing hundreds of people.
Blinken noted that “officials in designed Mariupol said that more than 2,400 had been killed in that city alone,” which is a significantly higher estimation from one city considering the United Nations reported the death toll in the entire country to be roughly 1,000. In releasing that estimate, however, the U.N. said it believed the total amount is “considerably higher.”
