“…that is a war crime”

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin stopped short of saying Russia was outright committing war crimes in a news conference with his Slovakian counterpart. Austin said recent “attacks” in Ukraine “appear to be focused directly on civilians,” and “if you attack civilians, purposely target civilians… that is a war crime.” Austin said Russia’s actions in Ukraine are “under review” by the US State Department.

“There’s a process that we’ll go through to review all of this, but we call upon Mr. Putin to cease these horrible actions; again, these are civilians not combatants and so they should not be targeted,” Austin said.

President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” in the harshest condemnation of Putin’s actions from any US official since the war in Ukraine began three weeks ago.