Here's Why President Biden Is Calling Putin A 'War Criminal'
He must answer for the horrors in Bucha, Ukraine.
Saturday, Ukraine declared the town of Bucha free from Russian occupation. However, as Russian troops retreat from areas near Kyiv after a failed attempt to encircle the capital city, accounts of horrific alleged atrocities have emerged. We say “alleged,” but the pictures speak for themselves.
French news agency Agence France-Presse captured images of the lifeless bodies of at least 20 civilian men lining a single street. According to CNN, “the hands of one man are tied behind his back with a piece of white cloth. Another man lies alone, tangled up in a bicycle by a grassy bank. A third man lies in the middle of the road, near the charred remains of a burned-out car.”
Bucha Mayor Anatoliy Fedoruk revealed that almost 300 people have been buried in mass graves. He told Reuters:
Corpses of executed people still line the Yabluska street in Bucha. Their hands are tied behind their backs with white 'civilian' rags, they were shot in the back of their heads. So you can imagine what kind of lawlessness they perpetrated here.
Witnesses told The Guardian that Russian soldiers fired on men fleeing the town and killed civilians at will.
According to Bucha resident Taras Schevchenko, quoted in The Guardian , Russian soldiers denied people safe passage through a humanitarian corridor and instead gunned down men as they fled across an open field. He said bodies were "scattered on the pavements” and some of the dead were “squashed by tanks … like animal skin rugs”.
Mass grave discovered in Bucha, outside Kyiv, a CNN team has found. Bodies were first buried in the grave on the grounds of a church in first days of the war, residents told CNN. CNN saw at least a dozen bodies in body bags piled inside. Credit to @fpleitgenCNN & teampic.twitter.com/kkvysGWlND
— Jim Sciutto (@Jim Sciutto) 1649003515
Intentionally killing civilians is a war crime, and western leaders have denounced Russia’s vicious slaughter of unarmed people. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lamented the Ukrainian “streets littered with bodies. Bodies buried in makeshift conditions ... women, children and the elderly among the victims.”
Melinda Simmons, the British ambassador to Ukraine, said she believed Russian used rape as a weapon of war: “Women raped in front of their kids, girls in front of their families, as a deliberate act of subjugation. Rape is a war crime.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken told CNN’s Dana Bash that the gruesome images of dead Ukrainians were a "punch to the gut,” but he resisted accusing Russian troops of attempted genocide. Instead, he said:
"We will look hard and document everything that we see, put it all together, make sure that the relevant institutions and organizations that are looking at this, including the State Department, have everything they need to assess exactly what took place in Ukraine, who's responsible and what it amounts to."
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy didn’t pull any punches, decisively declaring Russia’s actions genocide. On CBS’s “Face the Nation,” he said this is “the elimination of the whole nation, and the people. We are the citizens of Ukraine. We have more than 100 nationalities. This is about the destruction and extermination of all these nationalities.”
Vladimir Putin is on record as denying not just Ukrainian sovereignty, but Ukraine’s actual existence. This viewpoint is reportedly deeply ingrained in the minds of Russian leadership. This isn’t technically the Holocaust, but it’s arguably still a war with ultimate goal of destroying an entire nation and distinct culture.
Russia’s defense ministry, who no one should trust for shit, released a statement Sunday saying it hadn’t killed civilians in Bucha. We apparently shouldn’t believe our own lying eyes. The defense ministry insultingly claims that the video footage and photographs confirming Russia’s barbaric actions are “yet another provocation” by the West. Russia asked the UN Security Council to convene a meeting Monday to discuss the actions of “Ukrainian radicals.” It’s as if these monsters are suggesting innocent people died their hands behind their own backs and somehow shot themselves in those same backs.
… and the people of Ukraine, that you pull your forces out now. It is still not too late to salvage the kinship felt between the Russian and Ukrainian people, as expressed in this video clip from a Ukrainian soldier.pic.twitter.com/TcS0c0Axq6
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@Tulsi Gabbard 🌺) 1648980518
The atrocities in Bucha are so awful that Russia apologist Tulsi Gabbard felt inclined to tweether own "Dear Mr. President Putin" message:
President Putin, not only is your brutal attack on Ukraine reprehensible, it has been a huge geopolitical error which has already cost Russia dearly. Those costs will get higher every day you remain in Ukraine. So it is in the best interest of the Russian people…
… and the people of Ukraine, that you pull your forces out now. It is still not too late to salvage the kinship felt between the Russian and Ukrainian people, as expressed in this video clip from a Ukrainian soldier.
Just a couple weeks ago, Gabbard was blaming President Joe Biden for Russia’s escalating war of aggression. This attempted heel-face turn is too little, too late, especially considering that Russian state TV frequently shows footage of Gabbard on Tucker Carlson’s white power hour. TV host Vladimir Soloviev recently called this former member of Congress “our girlfriend Tulsi” and immediately replied “yes” when asked if Gabbard’s some kind of Russian agent.
Meanwhile on Russian state TV: Another translated clip of Tucker Carlson and Tulsi Gabbard, introduced by state TV host Vladimir Soloviev as "Our girlfriend Tulsi." After the clip plays, one panelist asks: "Is she some sort of a Russian agent?" The host quickly replies: "Yes."pic.twitter.com/VVNGmtjavU
— Julia Davis (@Julia Davis) 1648687325
The West is set to impose even tougher sanctions on Russia, and President Biden just told reporters he’s seeking a war crimes trial for Putin.
The dead in Bucha demand justice.
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No, they shouldn't. They should acknowledge that isolated war crimes have occurred in every conflict, and the US military has had members commit atrocities. In the past, like with the Native Americans or My Lai, they were committed with tacit approval from High Commands. My Dad told me about isolated incidents in Okinawa. Google "Cave of the Virgins" and shudder with horror.
This is way different than what's going on now in Ukraine. I am a student of military history. The Dresden bombing was technically not a war crime, but that made no difference to the children who died of smoke inhalation, fire or falling buildings.
Wrong is wrong and it should be labelled as such.
It was not an Official Policy. It was a war crime of frustration, rage, and a breakdown of discipline by soldiers who were getting sniped at and blown up by booby traps until they went berserk.