UN ambassador: Russia has committed ‘war crimes,’ civilian attacks ‘cannot be justified’

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said in an interview on Thursday that Russia has committed “war crimes” and that civilian attacks “cannot be justified.”

In an interview, the BBC’s James Menendez asked Linda Thomas-Greenfield if Russia had committed war crimes, noting that several people were killed in the bombing of a children’s hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, and that people did not have enough medicine or food in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson. 

“You know, this is the question that we’re being asked every day, and we’re working with others in the international community to document the crimes that Russia is committing against the Ukrainian people,” Thomas-Greenfield responded. “They constitute war crimes; there are attacks on civilians that cannot be justified by any — in any way whatsoever.”

“I still see images of a woman being rolled out of a hospital, pregnant, bleeding, people screaming, children crying. It is just unconscionable. And we call on Russia to change course,” she continued.

The remarks come two weeks after Russia began its invasion into Ukraine. Ukraine alleged that Russia had struck a maternity and children’s hospital in the city of Mariupol on Wednesday, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky immediately condemned the violence. 

Following the reported bombing, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said during a briefing with reporters on Thursday that a “legal review process” needed to be conducted first before the U.S. named something a war crime. 

“Let me say the bombing of a maternity hospital is horrific. It’s barbaric. I don’t think anybody who saw that could not have been emotionally deeply impacted. There’s a legal review process that the United States undergoes to make considerations of labeling something as a war crime,” she said.

“That is the ongoing process that is — we’re pursuing at this point in time, it’s ongoing. Obviously, if Russia is intentionally targeting civilians, that would be a war crime, but we need to go through the legal assessment and review in order to make a formal conclusion,” Psaki added.

The remarks also come as members of the Biden administration have said they would welcome an investigation into possible war crimes committed by Russia. 

During a joint press conference with Vice President Harris and Polish President Andrzej Duda in Warsaw, Poland, on Thursday, Harris said there should “absolutely” be an international investigation into possible Russian war crimes in Ukraine. 

“It is obvious to us that in Ukraine, Russians are committing war crimes. I hope that also in the future it will be obvious for a court investigating those issues who bears responsibility for that,” Duda added.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price also said on Thursday that an investigation would be welcomed.

“We absolutely are supportive of efforts to document and to investigate reports of potential war crimes in Ukraine. The fact is that we’ve seen very credible reports of deliberate attacks on civilians, which would under the Geneva Conventions constitute a war crime,” Price said.