MUNICH (AP) \u2014 The United States has determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine, Vice President Kamala Harris said Saturday, insisting that \u201cjustice must be served\u201d to the perpetrators.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Harris said 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<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cRussian forces have pursued a widespread and systemic attack against a civilian population \u2014 gruesome acts of murder, torture, rape, and deportation,\u201d Harris said. She also cited \u201cexecution-style killings, beatings, and electrocution.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Biden administration formally determined last March that Russian troops had committed war crimes<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n \u201cRussian authorities have forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of people, from Ukraine to Russia, including children,\u201d Harris said. \u201cThey have cruelly separated children from their families.”<\/p>\n She also pointed to the attack in mid-March on a theater<\/a> 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<\/a> after the Russian pullback from the Kyiv area last spring.<\/p>\n Harris said that, as a former prosecutor and former head of California’s Department of Justice, she knows \u201cthe importance of gathering facts and holding them up against the law.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn the case of Russia\u2019s actions in Ukraine, we have examined the evidence, we know the legal standards, and there is no doubt,\u201d she said. \u201cThese are crimes against humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who also was attending the Munich conference, said in a statement issued as Harris spoke that \u201cwe reserve crimes against humanity determinations for the most egregious crimes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The new determination underlines the \u201cstaggering extent\u201d of suffering inflicted on Ukrainian civilians and \u201calso reflects the deep commitment of the United States to holding members of Russia\u2019s forces and other Russian officials accountable for their atrocities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Russia’s nearly yearlong invasion of Ukraine<\/a>, has dominated discussions at the Munich conference, an annual gathering of security and defense officials from around the world. Harris told the assembled participants: “Let us all agree \u2014 on behalf of all the victims, both known and unknown, justice must be served.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSuch is our moral interest,\u201d she said. \u201cWe also have a significant strategic interest.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo 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 imperialist ambitions can go unchecked,\u201d Harris added.\u00a0<\/p>\n If Russian President Vladimir Putin succeeds in attacking international rules and norms, \u201cother nations could feel emboldened to follow his violent example,\u201d she said. \u201cOther authoritarian powers could seek to bend the world to their will, through coercion, disinformation and even brute force.\u201d<\/p>\n Harris’ audience Saturday didn’t include any Russian officials. Conference organizers decided not to invite them this year.<\/p>\n Asked on the sidelines of the event about the U.S. determination, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba replied that \u201cRussia waged a genocidal war against Ukrainians because they do not recognize our identity and they do not think we deserve to exist as a sovereign nation.”<\/p>\n \u201cEverything that stems from that is crimes against humanity, war crimes and various other atrocities committed by the Russian army in the territory of Ukraine,\u201d he said. “Let lawyers sort out specifically which act belongs where in terms of legal qualification.\u201d<\/p>\n Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Western allies in a video address to the Munich conference on Friday to quicken their military support<\/a> for Ukraine, declaring that \u201cit\u2019s speed that life depends on.\u201d<\/p>\n Kuleba voiced confidence that Ukraine would eventually receive fighter jets from its partners, despite their current reluctance. He noted that they initially pushed back on providing other heavy weapons that were later delivered or promised, \u201cso the only outstanding type of weapon is planes.”\u00a0<\/p>\n In Munch on Friday, a Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, called for cluster munitions and phosphorous bombs, German media reported. Cluster munitions are banned by an international treaty.<\/p>\n Asked whether he supported calling for such weapons, Kuleba said Ukraine has evidence that Russia uses them.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not party to the convention on the prohibition of cluster ammunition, so legally there are no obstacles for that,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd if we receive one, we will be using it exclusively against military forces of the Russian Federation.\u201d<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Geir Moulson contributed to this report from Berlin.<\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Follow AP\u2019s coverage of the war in Ukrainehttps:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/russia-ukraine<\/a><\/p>\n