Biden made the remarks when discussing recent efforts to tackle higher gas prices triggered by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. “I am doing what I can with executive orders to lower the price and deal with the rise in Putin’s prices,” he told an audience in Menlo, Iowa. “Your family budget, your ability to fill your tank, none of this should depend on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide half a world away,” Biden said. The Biden government has accused Putin of committing war crimes in Ukraine, but has stopped calling civilian killings “genocide,” a term used by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Biden’s comments come days after Russian missiles struck a train station in Ukraine, killing more than 50 people, and a week after horrific images of civilian corpses appeared on the streets of the city of Bucha near Kyiv.
Asked last Monday if the Buha killings were genocide, Biden said: “No, I think it’s a war crime.”
The same day, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the government had not yet ruled that genocide was taking place in Ukraine and suggested that a decision be made. “Based on what we have seen so far, we have seen atrocities, we have seen war crimes. “We have not seen a level of systematic deprivation of the Ukrainian people rise to the level of genocide,” Sullivan told reporters at the time. “But, again, this is something we will continue to watch.” Biden’s comments during a speech in Iowa on Tuesday represent a major shift in his government’s characterization of the atrocities in Ukraine.
Tensions are likely to escalate further with Russia, already soaring amid a six-week military offensive in Moscow. Syria casts shadow over Biden to respond to possible chemical attack in Ukraine New York deputy resigns after arrest It is not clear whether the genocide has been formally identified.
Biden had previously come out in front of his government, calling the Russian strikes that killed civilians “war crimes” last month. The government later accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians in Ukraine, including a maternity hospital in Mariupol, and of committing war crimes.
—Updated at 5:14 p.m.