Biden calls Putin a “war criminal”
US President Joe Biden called the Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” for the first time since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
He announced on Wednesday an additional $800 million in military support for Ukraine, and said “we started helping Ukraine before the start of the war, and we took Putin’s threats very seriously.”
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin stressed that “the Pentagon will move quickly to secure the urgent additional military assistance that President Biden has approved for Ukraine.”
The White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, said: “We haven’t seen any efforts to de-escalate from president Putin or from the Russian military”.
These developments concerning the US position come after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s address to the U.S. Congress, in which Biden called on to help “fend off Russia’s assault.”
According to Al-Hurra channel, a senior official in the US Defense Ministry confirmed that the Russian forces “have made little progress” towards the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, so far and he noted that Mariupol, Chernev and Kharkiv cities are “still isolated.”
a Slovak military spokesperson said: “Slovakian defense officials expect to discuss a possible transfer of their Soviet-era S-300 air defense systems to Ukraine when U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visits there Thursday, explaining that Washington “provides the Ukrainians with intelligence that may help them in the fight.”
It is noteworthy that the International Court of Justice, on Wednesday, ordered Russia to cease its military actions in Ukraine, expressing it is “profoundly concerned” by Moscow’s use of force, in a decision supported by 13 judges against two opposition.
