Edward Helmore — The Guardian Feb 18, 2023
Joe Biden’s presidential administration has formally concluded that Russia has committed crimes against humanity during its nearly year-long invasion of Ukraine, US vice-president Kamala Harris said on Saturday, and pledged that those involved “will be held to account”.
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference five days before the first anniversary of Russia’s invasion, Harris said: “In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt: these are crimes against humanity.”
“And I say to all those who have perpetrated these crimes, and to their superiors who are complicit in those crimes – you will be held to account.”
In prepared remarks, Harris added that Russia had been “weakened” by the war. She said that the “transatlantic alliance is stronger than ever. And most importantly, the spirit of the Ukrainian people endures.”
The US vice-president remarks came as the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said that members of Russia’s forces had “committed execution-style killings of Ukrainian men, women, and children; torture of civilians in detention through beatings, electrocution, and mock executions; rape; and, alongside other Russian officials, have deported hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians to Russia, including children who have been forcibly separated from their families”.
“These acts are not random or spontaneous; they are part of the Kremlin’s widespread and systematic attack against Ukraine’s civilian population,” Blinken added.
The official US determination of Russian war crimes, which came at the end of a legal and factual analysis led by the state department, carries no immediate consequences for the war itself or the western response.
But Washington hopes the determination could help further isolate the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and galvanise legal efforts to hold members of his government accountable through international courts and sanctions.
Harris’s speech came as senior western leaders met in Munich to assess Europe’s worst conflict since the second world war. The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, told the conference that holding Russia to account for its actions would be a part of “winning the peace”.
“We must see justice through the [international criminal court] for their sickening war crimes committed, whether in Bucha, Irpin, Mariupol or beyond,” Sunak said, adding that the “treaties and agreements of the post-cold war era have failed Ukraine”.
The statements by international leaders and diplomats come as Russia is stepping up attacks in Ukraine’s east. Ukraine, too, is planning a spring counteroffensive, for which it is seeking more, heavier and longer-range weapons from its western allies.
Separately, Blinken met the Moldovan president, Maia Sandu, before Saturday’s conference to discuss increased American support for the Ukraine-bordering nation, including to advance “its democratic reform agenda, strengthen its sovereignty and territorial integrity”.
Sandu said Russia was conducting “hybrid warfare” against Moldova and aimed to “destabilise society” and “bring people into the streets to change the government and create a pro-Russian government”. Blinken said the US was alarmed by “some of the plotting that we’ve seen coming from Russia to try to destabilise the government”.
Signals from Washington that it is prepared to support prosecutions through the international criminal court are an advance on conclusions that the US, and a UN-mandated investigation, have already drawn: that Russian forces are guilty of war crimes.
Still, the Biden administration’s use of the term “crimes against humanity” implies a legal finding that acts from murder to rape are widespread, systematic and intentionally directed against civilians. Under international law, that is seen as a more serious offence.
The UN-backed commission of inquiry on Ukraine has not yet concluded that the war crimes it says it has identified amount to crimes against humanity.
In her remarks, Harris cited as “barbaric and inhumane” the scores of victims found in Bucha shortly after Russia’s invasion last February; the 9 March bombing of a Mariupol maternity hospital that killed three people, including a child; and the sexual assault of a four-year-old by a Russian soldier that was identified by the UN report.
“Let us all agree: on behalf of all the victims, known and unknown, justice must be served,” Harris said.
Organisations supported by the US Agency for International Development have documented more than 30,000 war crimes incidents since the invasion, according to the US government. Ukrainian officials said they were investigating the shelling of the city of Bakhmut this week as a possible war crime.
Russia, which says it is conducting a “special military operation” in Ukraine to eliminate threats to its security and to protect Russian speakers, has denied intentionally targeting civilians or committing war crimes.
The Biden administration has sought to bring alleged war criminals to justice, including training Ukrainian investigators, imposing sanctions, blocking visas and hiking penalties under existing US war crimes laws. Washington is estimated to have spent $40m (£33m) on the efforts so far and says it is working with Congress to secure an additional $38m.
But the administration’s ability to enforce any such efforts beyond its borders – and certainly within Russia – is limited and collecting evidence in Ukraine has proven difficult.
International legal bodies are also constrained. At the international criminal court, for instance, jurisdiction extends only to member states and states that have agreed to its jurisdiction, such as Ukraine but not Russia. Kyiv has been pushing for a new international war crimes organisation to focus on the Russian invasion, which Moscow has opposed.
Wog America wants to kill White Russians and White Russians are killing White Ukrainians. The British government is swamping the White British, and the EU is at war with all the White European countries. It ends with incompetence throughout all these societies and the universally Third World status of humans, as in Talmudism, Cohencidentally
They should be careful warning about who’ll be held to account. Plenty of us want to see Bush, Cheney, Blair, Campbell et al brought to trial for their many war crimes. If Russia’s advances send them running with few places to go they could easily face arrest. The powers in the world are changing, so not until they are dead will they be beyond man’s justice.
I have NO idea where they keep finding these totally transparent, idiotic, stupid c*nts like “Knee-Pads” Kamala!
😅😂🤣
Of course the #1 Crimes Against Humanity country in world history would invert reality, of course.
Thank yo Lewis Jones. It is good to see some truth spoken sometimes.
Have you noticed the more Western leaders running the shit-show talk the more they incriminate themselves…
Yeah sure, it is up to the clueless tranny Mustapha Kamal Harris to judge who actually committed atrocities between the Russian army and the UkraineNeo-Nazis…
Peter , they have a continuous supply from their inbred cross bred yids , call them what you will . Groomed throughout their lives to a high degree of political stupidity to be then steered into some government position where they say whatever they are told and dance to their Yiddish puppet masters.
‘Heels up Harris’ ..despite being incoherently self medicated most of the time or otherwise engaged lovingly gazing at her haggard visage in the mirror used by George Washington.. and blowing it kisses…
or carefully and artfully refolding her slack and wrinkled neck skin in the ‘White House’ ‘Powder’ room.. whilst stealthily re-self medicating…
..has certainly earned the epithet… (mainly on her knees in various janitors closets)..
of ‘Vice’ President…
Camel toe/Heels up Harris, can anyone take this ignorant cow seriously? She’s nothing more than a comedic circus sideshow in an attempt to take the edge off the real problems in this country which is her and the rest of the political freaks in the District of Cucks.
Talk about a political hack full of Jew cock.
No modern nation has committed more crimes against humanity than “US Imperialism and all its running dogs” (a direct citing by Mao Zedong, without the “Chinese characteristics” part!). This is the one thing Mao was correct about.
Talk about crimes. The US has been committing crimes against humanity since they rearmed France post WW2 to destroy Vietnam. Then killed 3 million in Korea. Then killed 4 million in Vietnam. Then killed at least 10 million in the Middle East. Now pushing the world to nuclear war. Crime? She is a cackle bird who put 1500 in jail for marijuana. The biggest crime of America’s history? Biden and this inept VP coming to power.
African continent leader Ugandan Foreign Minister Jeje Odongo explaining yesterday: “We were colonized and forgave those who colonized us…Now, the colonizers are asking us to be enemies of Russia, who never colonized us, is that fair?…Not for us: their enemies are their enemies, our friends are our friends”.
Lying jackal Komrade Kumula Ho Harris is just reading the latest Jewish script as they try to do anything to prolong the war and “punish” Russia for taking out the Khazar “new” Israel organ harvesting factory called Ukraine.
The latest tripe is to try to pin Jewish run Ukraine crimes on Russia.
It won’t work, and will fail like everything else they have tried. Can you name one thing Biden has done to improve the country? Not a one, zip, zero – and worse than Trump.
Kamala in the WH is a crime against humanity. Jews and the Jewish-run United States are crimes against humanity. Leave Russia alone.
Blame the British Establishment bum boys for elevating these narcissistic hysterical wimin to power ,it started with the ratschild agent Pankhurst. It was sickening watching the Tory bumboys fawning over that non entity Thatcher as she destroyed our industries . The sooner we get the feminista back in the kitchen and child rearing as natural law intended the better.
DARPA + US protected CDC-FDA-PFIZER-
MODERNA etc have done with USgovernment,
CIA/FBI/DHS crimes against humanity with
Chemtrailing, Drug abuse + covid fraud !
Why for goodness sake do they let this very stupid woman talk? Is it just to give feed to rags like the Guardian? Given what is happening to the Ukrainians at the hands of their ‘leaders’, and that Russia has made known that it is keeping record of Ukrainian war criminal behaviours, do the Biden and Blinken types of oddball actually imagine they can indict the Russians?
Very recently, the toerag Zelenski was asked in a televised interview about the press ganging of 16-year-olds into frontline service. His answer was: ‘To be honest, I don’t know how they recruit’. Revealingly, he did not even feign an intention to investigate. Yet such criminals and their Western backers harbour an intention to bring a crimes-against-humanity case against Russia? This beggars belief.
If you know Harris was one of Hillary’s proteges it all makes sense.
This type of woman arises at a certain time in a culture’s destruction.
Messalina was a murderous man-eater back in Old Rome, being so sloppy at it her husband the Emperor Claudius had her executed. Madame Bathory of Hungary had young girls abducted and flayed alive so she could keep her beauty. It has been said that after President Woodrow Wilson had his stroke, Mrs Wilson essentially ran the USA and nobody knew the difference.
It’s been said it isn’t the Wild Women or the Power Women that are the problem. The problem is what’s wrong with the men that they cannot run their countries effectively? The loss of testosterone has political consequences.
That is sooo funny….. but that’s a politician….. Blame someone else for doing what you are doing. It’s called hypocrisy and the US is numero uno.
‘member when the good witch (Tulsi) tore her a new one,and some said “she’s a young leader”? No?! ‘member when DJT was the devil you knew, and Sauron was king of all the basement he surveilled, and now you got him right where he wants you?! Lotta pipeline under the water since then, ten jew bery mud! Or ‘member that mini-me partying like it’s 1999 and now you have “tanks but no tanks, how bout some nice air”?!
How about that wolf in sheep’s clothing, how come he doesn’t have an army of immi-vaders, or at least SOME opposition like everbody else?!
Cause “we” got the Gubmint we deserved, or “we” were so well represented?!
I know “we” live in interesting times, but WTF ‘luminaughty?!!
Astraea–thanks