Blinken says US has seen reports of Russian abuses in Ukraine that ‘would constitute a war crime’
“We’ve seen very credible reports of deliberate attacks on civilians, which would constitute a war crime. We’ve seen very credible reports about the use of certain weapons,” Blinken told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union.” The secretary appeared to be referring to Russia’s suspected use of cluster bombs in dense areas with many civilians.”And what we’re doing right now is documenting all this, putting it all together, looking at it and making sure that as people and the appropriate organizations and institutions investigate whether war crimes have been or are being committed, that we can support whatever they’re doing,” Blinken said. “So right now, we’re looking at these reports. They’re very credible and we’re documenting everything.” The International Criminal Court said last week thatUS Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield echoed Blinken on Sunday, saying the US was “working with our partners to collect and provide information” on potential war crimes. “Any attack on civilians is a war crime,” she told Leaders from both parties have in recent days been calling on the US to cut off its supply of Russian oil, including Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who has co-sponsored legislation to ban Russian oil imports. “We shouldn’t allow Vladimir Putin to have the power at any moment to raise gas prices on Americans by cutting us off at some point now or in the future. So, we should cut him off now and replace it with American oil and have a buffer in between the time that that production starts up and the time that we make the cutoff,” he told Tapper in a later appearance on “State of the Union.” “And we can use our strategic reserves for that,” Rubio said. “It makes no sense whatsoever to continue to buy oil from Russia that they use to fund this war and this murderous campaign they’re undertaking.”Sen. Joe Manchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia, on Sunday also urged the US to cut off its supply of Russian oil, telling NBC “Meet the Press” that his constituents think “it’s basically foolish for us to keep buying products and giving profit, giving money, to Putin to be able to use against Ukrainian people.”Manchin and Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska introduced a bill last week to cut off Russian oil and increase US domestic production to make up for it. Addressing the potential economic impact of the proposed ban, Manchin said gas prices are already high and “it wasn’t because of this.”This story has been updated with additional reaction and background information.CNN’s Chandelis Duster, Ali Main, Kevin Liptak and Zachary B. Wolf contributed to this report.
