President Joe Biden told reporters in the East Room of the White House that he thought Russian President Vladimir Putin was a war criminal for his invasion of Ukraine.
Mr Biden was caught on video responding to a question from Fox News’s Jacqui Heinrich asking if the Russian president was a war criminal. Initially, Mr Biden said “no” before he came back, clarified his response to Ms Heinrich and then said “he is a war criminal”.
The president’s words come after he announced new military aid to Ukraine. But Mr Biden stopped short of enacting a no-fly zone, which the embattled nation’s President Volodymyr Zelensky requested in a joint address to Congress on Wednesday.
The Senate unanimously passed a resolution earlier labelling Mr Putin a war criminal for his assault on Ukraine. Republican Sens Lindsey Graham of South Carolina – long considered a hawk on national security – and Rand Paul of Kentucky, who is a more non-interventionist Republican, negotiated the language.
“All of us in this chamber joined together, with Democrats and Republicans, to say that Vladimir Putin cannot escape accountability for the atrocities committed against the Ukrainian people,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
It is not the first time Mr Biden has called someone a war criminal. According to his 2007 memoir, Mr Biden said he told Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, “I think you’re a damned war criminal,” though some fact-checking from The Washington Post in 2008 said Mr Biden inflated his record on Bosnia.
