Russia has committed “crimes against humanity” in his war on Ukraineassured this Saturday the US vice president Kamala Harriswho called for “justice” to be done.
“The United States has formally established that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in Ukraine,” Harris said in a speech to the Munich Security Conference.
“On behalf of the victims, known and unknown, justice must be delivered, this is our moral interest,” Harris said in Munich.
The US vice president stated that Russian forces have “systematically” attacked the Ukrainian civilian population and have committed, among other things, “horrendous acts of murder, torture, rape and deportation”.
Harris listed a series of acts that he described as “barbaric and inhumane” and which, he said, constitute crimes against humanity, as far as the United States has been able to formally determine.
For this reason, Washington will continue to support the judicial processes that have been opened in Ukraine, as well as the international investigations in this regard, so that the direct perpetrators and their superiors must be held accountable before justice.
However, Harris stressed that along with this “moral interest”, the West also has a “strategic interest” in defending the rules-based international order that emerged after World War II and which establishes that borders must not be altered by force.
“There is no nation that is safe in a world in which one country can violate the sovereignty and territorial integrity of another, where crimes against humanity go unpunished, where a country with imperialist ambitions can do whatever it wants,” he asserted.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and US Vice President Kamala Harris shake hands during their bilateral meeting at the Munich Security Conference (MSC) in Munich, Germany. Thomas Kienzle/Pool via REUTERS
If Moscow gets its way, other countries will be encouraged to follow its “violent example,” the vice president said, resorting to coercion, misinformation and even “brute force.”
In this sense, Harris stressed his “discomfort” at the fact that China It has “deepened” its relationship with Russia since the war began, advancing that if Beijing provides Moscow with military support it will only “reward aggression” and further undermine the rules-based international order.
In light of all this, Washington It will continue to support Ukraine “as long as it takes,” said the vice president, who prophesied that in the conflict “there will be more dark days” and the “daily agony of war will continue.”
However, he stressed, time “does not play in favor” of Moscow, while on the contrary Kiev, Washington and Brussels will manage to “rise to the occasion” and continue to defend human dignity, international order and freedom.
