Joe Biden Calls Putin A War Criminal – President Joe Biden offered his strongest condemnation of Russian President Vladimir Putin yet, calling the Russian leader a war criminal and pledging an additional $800 million in funding for Ukraine. His comments came just hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the United States Congress and requested additional support for his fight against invading Russian troops.
“America is leading this effort, together with our allies and partners, providing enormous levels of security and humanitarian assistance that we’re adding to today, and we’re going to do more in the days and weeks ahead,” Biden said on Wednesday.
The president added that the fight in Ukraine is a matter of defending the right of the Ukrainian people to determine their own future and ensuring that Putin will never achieve a victory in Ukraine.
Following his remarks at the White House, Biden made it clear to journalists that he believes Putin is breaking international law.
“I think he is a war criminal,” he told journalists.
Western Leaders Push ICC Investigation Into Putin
Days after the invasion of Ukraine began, the Biden administration initiated an internal review of the U.S. government’s stance towards the International Criminal Court, with a view to supporting an investigation into whether Vladimir Putin committed war crimes.
Despite decades of refusing to acknowledge the authority of the International Criminal Court at The Hague to investigate or prosecute the U.S. forces for war crimes, the Biden administration’s review will decide whether the theoretical support for an ICC investigation into Russian war crimes can be translated into material support.
British Justice Secretary Dominic Raab traveled to The Hague on Monday to ensure that the court had everything it needs to initiate a prosecution against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The U.K.’s Health Secretary Sajid Javid told the BBC on Monday that Raab was there to ensure that Putin will be “held responsible” for his actions in Ukraine.
“It fills me with rage to see something like that,” he told the BBC. “These are appalling atrocities committed on innocent civilians in Ukraine by the Russians.”
Javid also said that the World Health Organization has already documented at least 31 attacks against health facilities in Ukraine.
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and report on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
