US President Joe Biden crossed a Rubicon on Wednesday “rhetoric”addressing Vladimir Putin for the first time as “war criminal”. The Kremlin ruled the qualifier “unacceptable and unforgivable”.
“This is the strongest condemnation of Putin’s actions by a US official since the war in Ukraine began three weeks ago”remark CNN. “Officials, including Biden, have so far avoided claiming war crimes are being committed in Ukraine”preferring to rely on “ongoing investigations” to determine “whether the term could be used or not”.
Other world leaders were not bothered with scruples, underlines the American chain, in particular the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, “who said last week that war crimes” were perpetrated in Ukraine.
“Even before the Ukraine attack, Biden had called Putin a’assassin’but the qualification of ‘war criminal’ represents a new rhetorical escalation”, observe the Financial Times. “The United States has already sanctioned Putin personally for the attack on Ukraine, a rare decision against a sitting head of state”.
“Unacceptable and unforgivable”
The country relief that Joe Biden did not utter the shocking expression during his speech devoted to Ukraine, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke to US parliamentarians, but during a subsequent meeting on the law against violence against women.
“A reporter asked him why he didn’t qualify [Vladimir Poutine] from ‘war criminal’”says the Madrid daily. “Biden, who may not have heard the question correctly, automatically answered ‘non’before immediately retracing his steps to say: ‘Oh, I think he’s a war criminal’”.
Aware that a step had been taken, the White House was quick to point out that the US president had “spoken from his heart” based on what he had seen at the “television”pointing out that a “Department of State legal process will determine” whether the Russian president can actually be “accused of war crimes”.
The Kremlin reacted immediately: “we consider such rhetoric from the Head of State as unacceptable and unforgivable [américain]whose bombs have killed hundreds of thousands of people all over the world”said the spokesman of the Russian presidency, quoted by the agency Tass.
Bombed out theater
Joe Biden’s remarks came as new attacks on civilians were reported by Ukrainian authorities, including at a historic theater in Mariupol, “used as a bomb shelter by hundreds of people”, reports Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty (RFE–RL).
“The number of victims is unknown” but something “1,200 people were probably in the theater”according to the city authorities, who could not approach the ruins of the building “because of the incessant bombings” of the Russian army in the area.
“Another horrible war crime committed in Mariupol”accused Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “A massive Russian attack on a theater where hundreds of innocent civilians had taken refuge. The building is completely destroyed. The Russians could not ignore that it was a refuge for civilians”he wrote on Twitter.
Earlier today, the International Court of Justice (CIJ) from La Haye “ordered Russia to suspend its invasion of Ukraine”pointing out that she had not found “no proof” that Ukraine had committed genocide in the Russian-speaking regions of the country – allegations used by Moscow to justify the invasion, remember The Guardian.
The judgments of the CIJ are binding under the UN charter, but the court has no means of enforcing them. Wednesday’s order is therefore “unlikely to influence Putin’s choices, but it offers an official rebuttal of his pretext to start the war”notes the British daily.