Biden accuses Putin of committing war crimes in Ukraine

US President Joe Biden has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of clearly committing war crimes in Ukraine, ratcheting up the American propaganda offensive against Moscow over the Ukraine crisis. Russia says the United States is fighting a proxy war in Ukraine against it.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday called for Putin's arrest on accusations of a war crime for deporting Ukrainian children and transfer of people from Ukraine to Russia since the conflict with the neighboring country began last year.

The United States is not a member of the ICC, but Biden told reporters at the White House on Friday that the ICC’s decision was justified.

"He's clearly committed war crimes," Biden told reporters, referring to Putin.

"Well, I think it's justified," Biden added, referring to the warrant. "But the question is - it's not recognized internationally by us either. But I think it makes a very strong point."

Western leaders have, unsurprisingly, been welcoming the ICC move with the EU foreign policy chief calling it an important decision for international justice and just a start.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also hailed the decision as historic. Russia has also accused Ukraine of committing war crimes. It says Kiev has used Western-made weapons against hospitals and civilian infrastructure in Ukrainian regions annexed by Russia.

A US State Department spokesperson said on Friday that Russian forces have also committed war crimes in Ukraine and the US supports accountability for perpetrators of war crimes.

"There is no doubt that Russia is committing war crimes and atrocities (in) Ukraine, and we have been clear that those responsible must be held accountable," the spokesperson added. "This was a decision the ICC prosecutor reached independently based on the facts before him."

All US presidents are war criminals: Why the latest chapter of the forever war only fools the usual suspects

"This is a war, a US war against Russia. Why? Because the US is NATO. What is NATO? NATO is a Horribles Parade costume, it’s a Halloween mask," writes Daniel Patrick Welch.

American writer and political analyst Daniel Patrick Welch said in an interview with Press TV that US and Western war criminals have never been prosecuted for the myriad war crimes committed over decades.

Welch said that “the most shocking part is that the whole reason this situation (Ukraine conflict) degenerated into open warfare is the obvious, ongoing and well-documented war crimes being committed by the US/NATO-enabled neo-Nazi groups for the past eight years. And the fact that they have been completely ignored by the Kiev junta and by their US and NATO string-pullers.”

“When these are answered for, it won't be at the Hague or the ICC. It will be in newly formed institutions in the Donbas, with considerable participation from the non-Western world. China and Russia really are on the front lines of destroying the corrupt old order led by the US. It is absolutely earthshaking,” he stated.

Russia began its “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 with a declared aim of “demilitarizing” Donbas, which is made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk self-proclaimed republics. Back in 2014, the two republics, which are predominantly Russian-speaking, broke away from Ukraine, prompting Kiev to launch a bloody war against both regions. The years-long conflict has killed more than 14,000 people, mostly in the Donbas.

Since the onset of the conflict between the two countries, the United States and its European allies have unleashed an array of unprecedented sanctions against Russia and poured numerous batches of advanced weapons into Ukraine to help its military fend off the Russian troops, despite repeated warnings by the Kremlin that such measures will only prolong the war.

ICC issues arrest warrant for Putin; Kremlin calls it 'null and void'

The ICC has issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin on war crime accusations.

The ICC has also issued a warrant for Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the commissioner for children’s rights in the office of the Russian president, on the same charges.

The international court has no powers to enforce its own warrants as ICC member states can make the arrests and hand over the individuals to the Huge.

Russia has repeatedly rejected accusations of committing war crimes by its forces during the year-long war in Ukraine.

Reacting to the development, the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow did not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC. Describing the questions raised by the court as "outrageous and unacceptable", he stressed that any decisions of the court were "null and void" with respect to Russia.

The United Nations defines a crime against humanity as one or more of several acts that are part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population with prior knowledge of the attack.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said previously that the US had formally determined Russia was committing war crimes in Ukraine.

Blinken said in a statement on March 23, 2022 that Putin had “unleashed unrelenting violence that has caused death and destruction across Ukraine.”

Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar has said the United States needs to join the ICC if it wants to probe alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine.

Omar questioned how the Biden administration could have Russia prosecuted for alleged war crimes in Ukraine if Washington is not even a member of the court that would handle the probe.

Congresswoman: US war crime claim against Russia ‘staggeringly hypocritical’

The United States needs to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) if it wants to probe alleged Russian atrocities in Ukraine, Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar said.

The ICC was created by a 1998 treaty known as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, adopted at a diplomatic conference in Rome, Italy in July 1998, and entered into force in July 2002. Although US President Bill Clinton signed it in 2000, he said that he would not submit it to the Senate for ratification until the US government had a chance to assess the functioning of the Court.

That signature was subsequently withdrawn by George W. Bush. Accordingly, the US is not subject to the jurisdiction of the court, meaning that it is not bound by its decisions. And the US has taken additional actions, both in the form of legislation and by executive order, to insulate its elected and military personnel from the reach of the court.

Nevertheless, the US has not been shy about targeting its enemies with the court as a weapon.

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