US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” over the attack on Ukraine.
“I think he’s a war criminal,” Biden told reporters.
Later, Biden asserted that reports about Russia’s bombing of apartment buildings and maternity wards and the detention of hundreds of doctors and patients referred to “atrocities” that angered the world. On Twitter, he accused his Russian counterpart Putin of “inflicting horrific destruction and terror on Ukraine”.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Biden was “talking from his heart” after he saw on television images of “the barbaric actions of a brutal dictator by invading another country,” as she put it, quoting AFP.
Biden’s comments about Putin came as he departed an unrelated event in the conflict, and were the sharpest condemnation yet of Putin’s actions and Russia’s from the highest-ranking US official since the start of the war in Ukraine.
While other world leaders have used the term “war crimes” to talk about the Russian military operation, the White House has been reluctant to call Putin’s actions war crimes, saying it is a legal term that requires research.
In a reaction, the TASS news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday, calling US President Biden’s description of Russian President Putin as a war criminal “unacceptable and unforgivable words for a head of state whose bombs have killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world.”
Earlier, US President Biden announced, on Wednesday, new military aid worth one billion dollars, and sending weapons with a longer range to Ukraine, stressing the United States’ “unprecedented” support for its ally in its war with Russia.
The funding approved at a time when Russian forces are closing in on the besieged Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, includes an amount of $200 million allocated over the weekend, in addition to $800 million in new funding as part of an aid package approved by Congress last week.
A Ukrainian soldier inspects the devastation caused by the Russian bombing in Kyiv
“These are direct transfers of equipment from our Department of Defense to the United States,” Biden said Ukrainian army to help him while fighting against this invasion“.
Biden spoke of sending anti-aircraft weapons “with a longer range” to Ukraine, stressing that the new military aid package provides “unprecedented support” to Ukraine, including drones. “We are helping Ukraine to obtain longer-range anti-aircraft systems and ammunition for those systems,” he added.
Biden said that this assistance “includes 800 anti-aircraft systems to ensure the ability of the Ukrainian army to continue to confront aircraft and helicopters attacking its own people.”
As stated by the US President, in his speech from the White HouseToday, Russian President Putin is “launching a terrible attack on Ukraine.”
A Ukrainian soldier inspects a destroyed Russian military vehicle in Kharkiv
Biden said his administration would continue to “impose Sanctions on Russia to disrupt its economy due to the attack on Ukraine,” he added.We will support Ukraine’s economy, andWe will continue to put pressure on Russia’s economy.”
He also stressed that Washington “continues to send military aid to Ukraine.” Commenting on this announcement, Moscow said that “military aid to Kyiv will not continue without consequences.”
Biden spoke hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a closed-circuit speech to members of the US Congress, in which he made an impassioned appeal to the United States and the West to provide more help to save Kyiv than world leaders have pledged so far.