Vice President Kamala Harris said the U.S. has formally determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity during its invasion of Ukraine during a Saturday address to the Munich Security Conference in a significant rhetorical escalation for the Biden administration.
Summary
Vice President Kamala Harris said the U.S. has formally determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity during its invasion of Ukraine during a Saturday address to the Munich Security Conference in a significant rhetorical escalation for the Biden administration.
- Harris told attendees of the influential security forum Russia must be held accountable for their actions, which are “an assault on our common values and our common humanity.”
- The career prosecutor and former California Senator continued, “In the case of Russia’s actions in Ukraine we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt: these are crimes against humanity.”
- The Vice President detailed the “widespread and systematic attack” Russia has launched against Ukrainian civilians, including execution-style killings, mass rape, torture, and forced deportations of civilians and children to fates unknown in the Russian interior.
- The Biden administration concluded in March that Russian troops had committed war crimes. The formal determination of “crimes against humanity” goes a step further and indicates that attacks on civilians are widespread and a result of intentional Russian policies.
- Harris’s speech comes nearly one year since the war began on February 24, 2022. Tens of thousands have been killed and millions more displaced in the weeks and months since the first Russian tanks rolled over the Ukrainian border.
- The New York Times reported Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. The Blinken-Yi meeting marks the first official resumption of diplomacy with China since the spy balloon contretemps earlier in February.
- Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, downplayed the chances Ukraine could militarily retake the Crimean Peninsula in comments at the Munich Security Conference, according to Politico. Smith predicted the war would end in some sort of a negotiated settlement.
- NBC News covered Harris’s speech in greater detail. “Russian forces have pursued a widespread and systemic attack against a civilian population — gruesome acts of murder, torture, rape, and deportation,” the Vice President told conference attendees.
- National Review covered one of the Russian military’s most vile and cruel tactics: disguising land mines as children’s toys. The Russian military leaves these in high-traffic areas like playgrounds to maim innocent children. The land mines are purposefully designed to “rip their foot off” or cost the child a hand or arm to take an adult away from the war front to serve as a caretaker and force Ukraine to spend money to care for the child instead of on defense.
- Fox News noted Harris referenced her time as a prosecutor during her speech to the Munich Security Conference, which Harris has tended to downplay since entering national politics in 2019. “Long before I was vice president of the United States, I spent the majority of my career as a prosecutor, beginning as a young lawyer in the courtroom and later running the California Department of Justice,” Harris said.
- The Wall Street Journal reported the Wagner Group, the paramilitary organization supporting the Russian military, has claimed to have taken more towns outside of Bakhmut in recent days. Wagner’s fighters have been on the front lines of the Battle for Bakhmut for months.
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© Dominic Moore, 2023
