As President Vladimir Putin is announcing plans to continue its invasion of Ukraine and achieve its goals, US President Joe Biden has accused him on Tuesday – for the first time – of committing genocide in Ukraine.
Speaking about his administration’s efforts to combat rising fuel costs increased by the war, Biden described the invasion as genocide, because, as he pointed out, the mounting evidence that make it clearer that Putin is trying to wipe out the idea of being able to be Ukrainian.
Stressing that the US citizens’ family budget and their ability to fill up the tanks shouldn’t hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide on the other side of the world, Biden added he’ll let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not Putin’s actions qualify as such.
Considering the fact that Biden has previously deemed Russian troops’ actions war crimes, this is a dramatic rhetorical escalation in the US view of what is happening on the ground.
It also appears as Biden is allowing – again! – for his views of the war, which are often emotion-driven, to outpace official US policy toward the conflict.
Only last week the US administration has said Moscow’s actions do not rise up to the level of genocide with national security adviser Jake Sullivan describing those actions as atrocities and war crimes but stressing that nothing they’ve seen so far rises to the level of genocide.
However, that didn’t stop the near-immediate praise from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who’s accusing Russia of committing genocide for weeks now.
Praising Biden’s statement as words of a true leader, Zelensky wrote on Twitter that it’s essential to call things by their names to stand up to evil and urged the US again for more heavy weapons to prevent further atrocities by Moscow.
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