Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that the US is assessing that Russian forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine and will work to hold them accountable.
“Today I can announce that, based on the information currently available, the US government is assessing that members of Russian forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine,” he said in a statement on Wednesday.
“We have seen numerous credible reports of indiscriminate attacks and deliberate attacks on civilians, as well as other atrocities,” Blinken said. “Russian forces have destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure, civilian vehicles, shopping malls and ambulances, leaving thousands of innocent civilians dead or injured. Many of the places that Russian forces have hit have been clearly identifiable. as in use by civilians “.
Blinken cited reports of several incidents of harassment Mariupollike the bombing of a maternity hospital and a strike that hit a Mariupol theater, clearly marked with the word “дети” —in Russian for “children” —in huge letters visible from the sky.
The Secretary of State’s statement comes a day after the Department of Defense said it had “visited clear evidence that over the past week or so the Russians have deliberately and intentionally aimed at civilian infrastructure.”
This is a developing story. It will be updated.
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