Speaking at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, US Vice President Kamala Harris said the international community has both a moral and strategic interest in investigating Russia’s crimes in Ukraine, highlighting the danger that other authoritarian governments take advantage of the situation if they are undermined. .foundations of international law.
“Russian forces have launched a widespread and systemic attack on the civilian population: horrific acts of murder, torture, rape and deportation,” Harris said. She spoke of “murders with particular cynicism and electric shocks”.
President Biden’s administration said as early as March last year that Russian forces were committing war crimes in Ukraine and attacks on civilians were widespread and systematic.
“Russian authorities forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of people from Ukraine to Russia, including children,” Harris said. “They separated the children from their families.”
The Vice President recalled the strike in mid-March on a drama theater in Mariupol, where civilians were hiding, resulting in the death of hundreds of people, and about photographs of the bodies of civilians abandoned in the streets of Bucha after the withdrawal of Russian troops from there last spring.
Harris added that as a former California prosecutor and chief justice officer, she understands “how important it is to gather the facts and compare them with the law…In the case of the actions of the Russia in Ukraine, we have studied the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt: these crimes against humanity… The United States will continue to support the criminal investigation in Ukraine and the investigations organizations because justice must be served. On behalf of all victims, known and anonymous: justice must be served. The United States officially believes that Russia has committed crimes against humanity. And I want to say to all those who committed these crimes and to their owners,” Harris pointed out, “you will be held accountable.”
Kamala Harris recalled: “Last year, from this rostrum, we warned of an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine . Let us remember: many at the time wondered how we were going to react? Can Russia be stopped? Will NATO unite? A year later, we know that Russia is weakened, that the North Atlantic alliance is stronger than ever, that Kiev is fighting and that the spirit of the Ukrainian people is unwavering. Under President Joe Biden, America has shown decisive leadership.”
“No nation is safe in a world where one country can violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another, where crimes against humanity are committed with impunity, where a country with imperial ambitions can go unpunished. “…If Russian President Putin violates international rules and norms, “other [авторитарные] countries can muster the courage to follow his brutal example, try to bend the world to their will through coercion, misinformation, and brute force,” Harris expressed the Biden administration’s stance.
“The United States will support Ukraine for as long as it takes,” Kamala Harris repeated the words of US President Joe Biden. “We will not flinch. And today, at this conference, I will say that moral principles and strategic interests are at stake – that is why Ukraine matters to the American people, to the European people and to the peoples of the world. entire.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who also attended the Munich conference, said the world was grappling with “the most egregious crimes against humanity”. He underlined the “staggering scale” of the suffering inflicted on Ukrainian citizens, expressed the “deep commitment of the United States to hold the Russian military and other officials accountable for their atrocities”.
