WARSAW, Poland — Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday that Russia’s bombing of a civilian hospital in Ukraine should be investigated as a potential war crime, becoming the highest-level U.S. official to condemn an attack that has drawn worldwide outrage and ratcheted up calls for Moscow to back off its all-out invasion.
The vice president said she was shocked when she saw news coverage of carnage from the maternity hospital in the southern city of Mariupol, saying the Kremlin should be held accountable more broadly for its “aggression and atrocities” in its two-week-long invasion of Ukraine.
“Just limited to what we’ve seen: pregnant women going for health care being injured in an unprovoked, unjustified war,” Harris said during a joint press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda at the Belwelder Palace in Warsaw.
Speaking through a translator, Duda called the bombing “an act of barbarism that bears the mark of a genocide.” Harris’ call for an investigation came in response to a question from a Polish reporter over whether the attack should face a war crimes probe.
Widely circulated images of the bombing, which emerged on Wednesday, have shown emergency responders carrying a bloodied pregnant woman through a courtyard littered with mangled cars and a heavily damaged building still smoldering.
The joint press conference was intended to highlight Harris’ two-day trip to Eastern Europe to convey unity among NATO countries on its eastern flank. Harris is meeting with the leaders of Poland and Romania over the next two days. The two countries, which border Ukraine and were former Soviet republics, have expressed unease over Russia’s intentions.
In their joint press conference, Harris and Duda had to address a rare crack in the diplomatic relationship over whether and how to send Polish fighter jets to Ukraine.
Duda’s government on Tuesday caught U.S. officials off-guard by announcing a plan to convey the planes to the United States for delivery to Ukraine, a move that risks escalating Russia’s aggression. The U.S. ultimately rebuffed the offer, saying there was no way to safely get the planes into Ukraine. Russia had said that such a transfer of planes would be considered an act of war.
Duda said at the press conference that his country was trying to balance its own desire to help Ukraine with its broader obligation to consult with allies in the 30-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
“There were requests addressed to us. Those requests were addressed to us by the Ukrainian side as well as, to some extent, the media,” he said, adding that “we decided to put those jets at the disposal of NATO, not expecting anything in return.”
Harris tried to glide over the issue. “I want to be very clear,” she said. “The United States and Poland are united in what we have done and are prepared to do to help Ukraine.”
As part of her visit, Harris announced the U.S. would spend an additional $53 million on humanitarian aid for Ukrainian refugees in Poland. Duda said his country has now absorbed almost 1.5 million people, mostly in the last 10 days.
Duda said he told Harris in their private meeting “in a very blunt way that Poland is in a refugee crisis.”
“Never before have we witnessed such a situation,” he said, adding that his country needs expert help from the United Nations as well, given the complicated logistics involved. Without more assistance from allies, “this will wind up in a refugee disaster.”
He said he also pressed Harris to absorb more refugees, easing the way for Ukrainians who have American relatives to stay with them while the war rages. Harris said most refugees have said they want to stay in Europe. She offered no new commitments on that front.
