The United States has determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine, Vice President Kamala Harris said Saturday, insisting that "justice must be served" to the perpetratrors. Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Harris said that the international community has both a moral and a strategic interest in pursuing those crimes, pointing to a danger of other authoritarian governments taking advantage if international rules are undermined. "Russian forces have pursued a widespread and systemic attack against a civilian population—gruesome acts of murder, torture, rape, and deportation," Harris said, per the AP. She also cited "execution-style killings, beatings, and electrocution."
The Biden administration formally determined last March that Russian troops had committed war crimes in Ukraine and said it would work with others to prosecute offenders. A determination of crimes against humanity goes a step further, indicating that attacks against civilians are being carried out in a widespread and systematic manner. "Russian authorities have forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of people, from Ukraine to Russia, including children," Harris said. "They have cruelly separated children from their families." She also pointed to the attack in mid-March on a theater in the strategic port city of Mariupol where civilians had been sheltering, which killed hundreds, and to the images of civilians' bodies left on the streets of Bucha after the Russian pullback from the Kyiv area last spring.
"In the case of Russia's actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt," Harris continued. "These are crimes against humanity." Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who also was attending the Munich conference, said in a statement issued as Harris spoke that "we reserve crimes against humanity determinations for the most egregious crimes." The new determination underlines the "staggering extent" of suffering inflicted on Ukrainian civilians and "also reflects the deep commitment of the United States to holding members of Russia's forces and other Russian officials accountable for their atrocities," he said. Harris' audience Saturday didn't include any Russian officials. Conference organizers decided not to invite them this year.
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