THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee said Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is committing genocide in Ukraine. Their comments came a day before they were scheduled to meet with the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
The ICC in March issued an international arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine. However, it has not yet charged him with any other offenses committed by Russian forces since their invasion of Ukraine more than 18 months ago.
The committee’s chairman, Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, told reporters during a visit to The Hague that Putin “tried to erase a culture, a people and a religion, and that is the definition of genocide.”
Another member of the committee, Ann Wagner, a Missouri Republican, spoke of the “crimes against humanity, the downright genocide that this man has perpetrated.”
Gerry Connolly, a Virginia Democrat, said Putin even before the war had denied the existence of Ukraine.
“So I think he himself made the case for genocide and his behavior subsequently has filled in blanks,” Connolly said.
Their comments Wednesday came as Russian shelling of a market in eastern Ukraine killed at least 16 people and wounded many more. The attack was launched while U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kyiv and was expected to announce more than $1 billion in new American funding.
Members of the committee will meet Thursday with ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan and visit the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, or Eurojust, which hosts the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine. The center aims to support nations already building cases against senior Russian leaders for the crime of aggression. The International Criminal Court can prosecute crimes including genocide but does not have jurisdiction over the crime of aggression.
