Biden for the first time called Putin’s war against Ukraine a genocide
US President Joe Biden said Tuesday that Americans’ budgets shouldn’t depend on whether a dictator commits genocide in another country.
– Your family budget, your ability to fill up your tank, none of it should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide a half a world away, – Biden said in Iowa, where he was unveiling a new rule on ethanol.
– To help deal with this Putin price hike, I’ve authorized the release of one million barrels per day from the strategic petroleum reserve,-Biden went on.
Biden has previously stopped short of calling what is underway in Ukraine a genocide. His aides have said it doesn’t yet rise to the level.
– We have seen atrocities, we have seen war crimes, we have not yet seen a level of systematic deprivation of life of the Ukrainian people to rise to the level of genocide, – national security adviser Jake Sullivan said earlier this month.
On Sunday, Sullivan told CNN’s Jake Tapper that calling it genocide isn’t as important as calling out the atrocities.
– In my opinion, the label is less important than the fact that these acts are cruel and criminal and wrong and evil and need to be responded to decisively, – he said.
