Biden calls Russia war ‘genocide’ as more allied leaders head to Ukraine

President Joe Biden said Russia’s war in Ukraine amounted to “genocide,” accusing President Vladimir Putin of trying to “wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian.”

“Yes, I called it genocide,” he told reporters in Iowa on Tuesday shortly before boarding Air Force One to return to Washington. “It’s become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian.”

At an earlier event in Menlo, Iowa, addressing spiking energy prices resulting from the war, Biden had implied that he thought Putin was carrying out genocide against Ukraine, but offered no details. Neither he nor his administration announced new consequences for Russia or assistance to Ukraine following Biden’s public assessment.

Biden’s comments drew praise from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who had encouraged Western leaders to use the term to describe Russia’s invasion of his country.

“True words of a true leader @POTUS,” he tweeted. “Calling things by their names is essential to stand up to evil. We are grateful for US assistance provided so far and we urgently need more heavy weapons to prevent further Russian atrocities.”

Related:

• 10K civilians dead after weeks of Russian attacks: Mariupol mayor

• Canada targets Russia’s defence sector with new round of sanctions

A United Nations treaty, to which the U.S. is a party, defines genocide as actions taken with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.”

Past American leaders often have dodged formally declaring bloody campaigns such as Russia’s in Ukraine as genocide, hesitating to trigger an obligation that under international convention requires signing countries to intervene once genocide is formally identified. That obligation was seen as blocking President Bill Clinton from declaring Rwandan Hutus’ killing of 800,000 ethnic Tutsis in 1994 as genocide, for example.

Biden said it would be up to lawyers to decide if Russia’s conduct met the international standard for genocide, as Ukrainian officials have claimed, but said “it sure seems that way to me.”

“More evidence is coming out literally of the horrible things that the Russians have done in Ukraine, and we’re only going to learn more and more about the devastation and let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not it qualifies,” he said.

Just last week Biden said he did not believe Russia’s actions amounted to genocide, just that they constituted “war crimes.”

During a trip to Europe last month, Biden faced controversy for a nine-word statement seemingly supporting regime change in Moscow, which would have represented a dramatic shift toward direct confrontation with another nuclear-armed country. “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said.

He clarified the comments days later, saying: “I was expressing the moral outrage that I felt toward this man. I wasn’t articulating a policy change.”

Polish, Baltic presidents head to Ukraine in show of support

The presidents of four countries on Russia’s doorstep headed to Kyiv on Wednesday in a show of support for Ukraine, after Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed to continue his bloody seven-week offensive until its “full completion.”

The presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — all NATO countries that worry they may face Russian attack in the future if Ukraine falls — were due to meet the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In one of the most crucial battles of the war, Russia said more than 1,000 Ukrainian troops surrendered in the besieged port of Mariupol. The information could not be verified, and it’s not clear how significant it would be, if true.

Russia invaded on Feb. 24 with the goal, according to Western officials, of taking Kyiv, toppling the government and installing a Moscow-friendly one. In the seven weeks since, the ground advance stalled and Russian forces lost potentially thousands of fighters — and the war has forced millions of Ukrainians to flee, rattled the world economy, threated global food supplies and shattered Europe’s post-Cold War balance.

U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday called Russia’s actions in Ukraine “a genocide” for the first time, saying “Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian.”

Zelenskyy applauded Biden’s use of the word, saying “calling things by their names is essential to stand up to evil.”

“We are grateful for US assistance provided so far and we urgently need more heavy weapons to prevent further Russian atrocities,” he added in his tweet.

Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said the leaders headed to Ukraine on Wednesday had “a strong message of political support and military assistance.”

Nauseda, Estonian President Alar Karis, Poland’s Andrzej Duda and Egils Levits of Latvia also plan to discuss investigations into alleged Russian war crimes, including the massacre of civilians.

Putin has denied his troops committed atrocities, and on Tuesday insisted Russia “had no other choice” but to invade and that the offensive aimed to protect people in parts of eastern Ukraine and to “ensure Russia’s own security.” He vowed it would “continue until its full completion and the fulfillment of the tasks that have been set.”

He insisted Russia’s campaign was going as planned despite a major withdrawal and significant losses.

Thwarted in their push toward the capital, Russian troops are now gearing up for a major offensive in the eastern Donbas region, where Russian-allied separatists and Ukrainian forces have been fighting since 2014, and where Russia has recognized the separatists’ claims of independence. Military strategists say Moscow believes local support, logistics and the terrain in the region favor its larger, better-armed military, potentially allowing Russia to finally turn the tide in its favor.