President Biden on Monday condemned the slaughter of civilians in Bucha, Ukraine, amid the withdrawal of Russian forces from the region — and put the blame squarely on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“You may remember I got criticized for calling Putin a war criminal,” Biden told reporters in Washington, D.C., after arriving back from Wilmington, Del., where he spent the weekend. “Well, the truth of the matter, you saw what happened in Bucha. This warrants him — he is a war criminal.”
Biden said administration officials were gathering evidence on the apparent atrocities from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, now in its sixth week, for a possible war crimes trial.
“We have to gather all the details so this can be an actual — have a war crimes trial,” the president said. “This guy is brutal, and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous, and everyone’s seen it.”
He added that the United States would continue to sanction Russia and provide Ukraine with “the weapons they need to continue the fight.”
But Biden said he disagreed with the assessment by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the killings of civilians amounted to genocide.
“No, I think it is a war crime,” the president said.
President Biden speaks to reporters at the White House on Monday. (Leah Millis/Reuters)
Last month, Biden had similarly called Putin a “war criminal,” as the death toll from the Russian military’s bombardment of Ukrainian cities continued to mount. More than 4 million Ukrainian refugees have already fled the country.
Earlier in the day, Bucha’s mayor forcefully condemned all of Russia for the widespread civilian deaths there, the full extent of which became apparent only after the recent pullback of Russian forces from the Kyiv region.
Anatoliy Fedoruk, the mayor of the city, told CNN that he had remained in Bucha amid the Russian occupation and witnessed the subsequent atrocities.
“We all were witnesses to the horrific events and the horrific crimes…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Yahoo News – Latest News & Headlines…