Russia-Ukraine: Joe Biden accuses Vladimir Putin of committing “genocide”

The position of the United States on the conflict between Ukraine and Russia continues to thicken. The American president described the situation in this region of the world as “genocide” at a time when 20,000 deaths were reported in the city of Mariupol, according to Ukrainian sources.

A new word has entered American jargon to describe the war in Ukraine. After accusing his Russian counterpart of “killer” and “butcher”, Joe Biden seemed to compare the situation in Ukraine to “genocide” during one of his trips.

“It’s increasingly clear that Putin is just trying to erase the very idea of ​​being a Ukrainian,” he said.

“Your family’s budget, your ability to fill up on gas, none of that should depend on a dictator declaring war and committing genocide on the other side of the world,” the president said. American during a trip to Iowa devoted to the fight against inflation.

The rise in consumer prices in March reached its fastest pace since December 1981, at 8.5% over one year, according to the consumer price index (CPI) published Tuesday by the Labor Department.

This term used by Joe Biden comes as the Ukrainian governor of the Donetsk region, announced in a television interview, to revise upwards the number of deaths in the large city of Mariupol where Russian forces seem to want to take.

Fighting in the southeastern port city of Ukraine has claimed at least 20,000 lives since late February, he said.

“We can say that between 20 and 22,000 people died in Mariupol,” said Pavlo Kirilenko, the Ukrainian governor of the Donetsk region, in an interview with the American television channel CNN on Tuesday.

The day before, the head of the American diplomacy, Antony Blinken seemed to indicate that the Russian forces planned to use chemical weapons in the city.

“Russian forces may use different riot control agents, including tear gas mixed with chemical agents” against “Ukrainian fighters and civilians as part of their aggressive campaign to take Mariupol”, he said.

For his part, the Russian president reacted to the situation in Boutcha. Vladimir Putin is accused by Westerners of carrying out the killings of civilians in the town of Boutcha, where bodies wrapped in plastic were found in mass graves.

For him, it is “a fake”, he said at a press conference, adding that the military operation in Ukraine was continuing “calmly”. Regarding a possible agreement to end the situation, Mr Putin accused the Ukrainian negotiators of “lack of consistency”.