‘Major war crimes’ being committed by Russia in Ukraine, says Joe Biden

US President Joe Biden on Wednesday decried “major war crimes” by Russia in Ukraine as he announced a set of new sanctions on Moscow, citing the cold-blooded execution of Ukrainian civilians as one of the reasons.

Speaking from Washington DC, the 79-year-old said, “Civilians executed in cold blood. Bodies dumped into mass graves. There is nothing less happening than major war crimes. Responsible nations have to come together and hold these perpetrators accountable.”

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The horrific images emerging from the now liberated city of Bucha, near the capital Kyiv, left “a sense of brutality and inhumanity left for all the world to see, unapologetically,” Biden said, adding, “We will keep raising the economic cost and ratchet up the pain for Putin and further increase Russia’s economic isolation.”

The US President’s comments come days after he called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” as reports of the atrocities in Bucha surfaced.

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“This guy is brutal, and what’s happening in Bucha is outrageous and everyone’s seen it,” Biden had said as he called for a gathering of evidence to put the Russian president on trial for war crimes in Ukraine.

Over the past couple of days, since Ukrainian forces regained control of the Kyiv region from Russia forces, reports and audio-visual material of atrocities committed by Russia in Bucha have sparked international outrage.

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Images and videos of Bucha, widely shared on social media and elsewhere, led British Prime Minister Boris Johnson comment that they were “not short of genocide, while Britain’s Health Secretary Sajid Javid compared the scenes from Bucha to the the 1995 genocide in Bosnia. The audio-visual material also triggered a response from China and India, both of whom had earlier been equivocal about the Russian invasion.

China, which has thus far refused to label the Russian incursion into Ukraine an “invasion,” called the images from Bucha “deeply disturbing,” while India, which had thus far abstained from voting in the UN on the conflict, reiterated that it stood “strongly against the conflict” and condemned the killings in Bucha.