BIDEN’S UKRAINE ‘GENOCIDE’ CLAIM IS UNACCEPTABLE, RUSSIA SAYS

Thu 14 April 2022:

Moscow has called US President Joe Biden’s use of the term “genocide” to characterize Russia’s activities in Ukraine “unacceptable,” and has accused the US of hypocrisy over its own misdeeds.

“We categorically disagree and consider unacceptable any attempt to distort the situation in this way,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday.

“This is hardly acceptable from a president of the United States, a country that has committed well-known crimes in recent times,” Peskov said.

Biden on Tuesday accused Russian forces of committing “genocide” in Ukraine, the first time his administration has used the term for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Yes, I called it genocide because it has become clearer and clearer that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of being able to be Ukrainian and the evidence is mounting,” Biden said.

Biden said it would ultimately be up to courts to determine whether Russia’s actions against its pro-Western neighbour constitute genocide.

Putin on Tuesday also dismissed as “fake” the accusations that his army committed war crimes in the Ukrainian town of Bucha, where mass graves were found after Russian troops withdrew.

Moscow has accused Ukraine of staging the alleged atrocities uncovered in Bucha.

The crime of genocide has a strict legal definition and has rarely been proven in court since it was cemented in international law after the Holocaust was carried out against Jewish people and other groups by Nazi Germany during World War II. The 1948 United Nations Genocide Convention defines the term as crimes committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”.

Genocide is harder to prove than other violations of international humanitarian law, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity, because it requires evidence of specific intent.

NEWS AGENCIES

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