Investigate Hospital Bombing as War Crime, Says VP

Los Angeles Times

Vice President Kamala Harris said Thursday that Russia’s bombing of a civilian hospital in Ukraine should be investigated as a potential war crime, becoming the highest-level U.S. official to condemn an attack that has drawn worldwide outrage and ratcheted up calls for Moscow to back off its all-out invasion.

The vice president said she was shocked when she saw news coverage of carnage from the maternity hospital in the southern city of Mariupol, saying the Kremlin should be held accountable more broadly for its “aggression and atrocities” in its two-week-long invasion of Ukraine.

“Just limited to what we’ve seen: pregnant women going for health care being injured in an unprovoked, unjustified war,” Harris said during a joint press conference with Polish President Andrzej Duda at the Belwelder Palace in Warsaw.

Speaking through a translator, Duda called the bombing “an act of barbarism that bears the mark of a genocide.” Harris’ call for an investigation came in response to a question from a Polish reporter over whether the attack should face a war crimes probe.

Widely circulated images of the bombing, which emerged on Wednesday, have shown emergency responders carrying a bloodied pregnant woman through a courtyard littered with mangled cars and a heavily damaged building still smoldering.

The joint press conference was intended to highlight Harris’ two-day trip to Eastern Europe to convey unity among NATO countries on its eastern flank. Harris is meeting with the leaders of Poland and Romania over the next two days. The two countries, which border Ukraine and were former Soviet republics, have expressed unease over Russia’s intentions.

As part of her visit, Harris announced the U.S. would spend an additional $53 million on humanitarian aid for Ukrainian refugees in Poland. Duda said his country has now absorbed almost 1.5 million people, mostly in the last 10 days.