Biden calls the conflict in Ukraine “genocide”

The word “genocide” has begun to be used in the United States to describe what is happening in the war in Ukraine. This Tuesday, the president of the United States, Joe Biden, first described as “genocide” the warlike conflict that began last February 24, when Russia began the invasion from Ukraine.

Other leaders of the international community, such as the French president, Emmanuel Macronhave opted for the “caution“, avoiding qualifying it as genocide and choosing to consider the actions of the Russian Army as “war crimes“. For his part, the president of Russia, Vladimir Putinalso spoke on Tuesday of genocidealthough to refer to what in his opinion the Ukrainians were committing with the Russians of the donbascausing Russia to be “forced to defend them”.

The American president has described his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putinfrom “dictator“while speaking of his government’s efforts to stop the increase in gasoline prices, as a result of the invasion launched by the Russian president in Ukraine, which he has described as “genocide“.

“I am doing everything in my power with executive orders to cut prices and deal with this rise in prices caused by Putin. Their families budget, their ability to fill the tank, none of that should depend on whether a dictator declare war and commit genocide on the other side of the world,” Biden asserted, referring to Putin and Ukraine during a rally in the farm state of Iowa.

In recent weeks, the US president has attacked Putin, whom he has come to describe as “Butcher“, and has accused the Kremlin of committing war crimes in Ukraine. Last week, the press asked Biden if he would qualify the Bucha massacre as genocide. -city on the outskirts of kyiv and where more than 250 civilian bodies have appeared after the withdrawal of Russian troops-.

“No, I think it’s a war crime,” President Biden replied. Within the US government, there is a bureaucratic process to determine whether genocide is being committed in a country and it is not clear whether that process has been completed or is taking place.

The US State Department did finalize last month a formal investigation in which he determined that Russian troops had committed war crimes in Ukraine, a claim that may lead to criminal prosecutions in US courts and other international proceedings.

For its part, Emmanuel Macron He has avoided talking about genocide in Ukraine as his American counterpart has done, arguing that a verbal escalation does not contribute to the objective of stop the war and seek peace. However, he has insisted that the Russian Army has committed “war crimes“.

“Russia has unilaterally unleashed a brutal war. It is established that the Russian Army has committed war crimes. Now we have to find the responsible and go to justice, which is what we are doing in cooperation with the Ukrainians,” Macron explained this Wednesday in an interview with the France 2 channel. This is how Macron responded to a question about whether he considers that we should talk about genocide in Ukraine, just as the American president has done.

“Genocide, that makes sense. The Ukrainian people, the Russian people are brother peoples“, has pointed out the head of the French State, who has added that he is going to be “cautious with words”, although the war “is crazy” and “of incredible brutality”.

For this reason, he added that he is going to continue “trying stop this war and build peace.” “So I don’t think escalation of words is helpful. What we can say is that the situation is unacceptable and that there are war crimes “, he has maintained. In this sense, Macron has advanced that, in the coming days, he will continue speaking both with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyas with Russian, Vladimir Putin.

France is working with the International Criminal Court (CPI) to establish precisely the accusations of war crimes committed in areas that have been occupied by Russian troops and has sent forensics and gendarmes criminalistics specialists to assist the Ukrainian authorities in investigations into killings.

For its part, Vladimir Putin also mentioned this Tuesday the word genocidealthough in his case he did it to refer to the one who, in his opinion, committed the Ukrainians in Donbas against the Russians. In this regard, he argued that the main goal of the war in Ukraine was “to help the people of Donbas, whom we recognized and were forced to defend.”

Furthermore, the Russian president has denied the alleged “war crimes“committed by Russian troops in Bucha and has ensured that it is a “falsification“. “First, the use of chemical weapons by the government of (Syrian President Bachar) Al Asad was staged. Then it turned out that it was a fake. Bucha is just as fake,” Putin said.

Bucha was precisely one of the topics of conversation between Putin and the Austrian chancellor, Karl Newhammer, who visited Moscow the day before. Nehammer, who visited the Ukrainian city last weekend, said that he confronted the Kremlin leader with the war crimes attributed to Russian troops, although the Russian president responded that it was all “a staging” of the ukrainian forces.