In Ukraine for the first time since the start of the Russian attack
For the first time since the start of the Russian offensive, US President Joe Biden on Tuesday night accused his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, of committing "genocide" in Ukraine. "Yes, I said it was genocide," Biden told reporters in Iowa, hours after he used the term in a speech dedicated to anti-inflation efforts.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has previously used this accusation, but it was not issued by the US administration before.
"It is becoming more and more evident that Putin is simply trying to cancel the idea that one can even be Ukrainian," he said. "We'll leave it to lawyers at the international level to decide" whether the crimes committed in Ukraine were, in fact, genocide, "but it certainly seems to me that it does," he added.
Pointing out that "evidence is accumulating" on "the horrific things the Russians have done in Ukraine," he expected that "we will find out more and more" about the extent of the devastation in Ukraine.
For his part, the Ukrainian president welcomed, in a tweet, "real words of a true leader" because "calling things by their name is essential to confronting evil", and demanded that his country be provided with "heavy weapons urgently".