US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday said he agreed with President Joe Biden’s characterisation of Russian atrocities in Ukraine as “war crimes” and said US officials are currently collecting evidence that could be used to prove such crimes were committed.
Speaking at State Department headquarters in Washington, Mr Blinken said he doubts anyone who has seen images of Russian attacks on civilian targets in Mariupol — including a theatre where children were sheltering before it was bombed on Wednesday — will ever forget them.
Such tactics, he said, are similar to those Russia employed in Grozny, Chechnya and Aleppo, Syria, and were meant to “break the will” of the Ukrainian people.
“Yesterday, President Biden said that in his opinion, war crimes have been committed in Ukraine,” Mr Blinken said.
“Personally, I agree, intentionally targeting civilians is a war crime. After all the destruction of the past three weeks, I find it difficult to conclude that the Russians are doing otherwise”.
Mr Blinken said US experts, led by Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaak, “are in the process of documenting and evaluating potential war crimes being committed in Ukraine”.
“We'll make sure that our findings help international efforts to investigate war crimes and hold those responsible accountable,” he added.
The top US diplomat explained that the US is “supporting the very important work that's being done — the evidentiary process — to bring the evidence together to document what's happened” by working with human rights activists, civil society groups, independent media outlets, and “appropriate organizations and institutions” to “go through this process” of compiling, collecting, and understanding evidence.
“We'll share that and our allies and partners — I'm sure will do the same with all of the investigations that are ongoing — to support accountability using every tool that we have available,” he said.
Mr Blinken also warned that Russia “may be setting the stage” for use of banned chemical weapons, which Moscow would blame on Ukrainian forces as justification for escalating the violence against the Ukrainian people.
“Manufacturing events, and creating false narratives of genocide to justify greater use of military force is a tactic that Russia has used before, including in Georgia,” he said.
