Washington, Apr 10 (PTI) The US is taking “aggressive action” to help the Ukrainians succeed on the battlefield and help them have the best possible position at the negotiating table, a top White House national security official said on Sunday.
Speaking to CNN, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said the US will play a key role in supporting Ukraine against Russia after Moscow attacked its neighbour.
“We are taking aggressive action in an effort to both help the Ukrainians succeed on the battlefield and help the Ukrainians have the best possible position at the negotiating table,” Sullivan said.
“We will continue to do that. We will continue to rally the world in that regard. And the United States will play the key role it has played thus far in the days and weeks ahead,” he added.
Referring to the appointment of General Aleksandr Dvornikov as new Russian commander in Ukraine, the US National Security Advisor said that no appointment of any general can erase the fact that Russia has already faced a strategic failure in Ukraine.
“They thought that they were going to be able to conquer the capital city and take other major cities with little resistance, that they’d, in fact, be welcomed with open arms. And what we have learned in the first several weeks of this war is that Ukraine will never be subjugated to Russia. It doesn’t matter which general President Putin tries to appoint,” he said.
Sullivan alleged that the new general has a resume that includes brutality against civilians in other theaters, in Syria.
“We can expect more of the same in this theater. But it’s not something that we need to anticipate looking forward to. As we have already seen it, and we can expect more of it,” he alleged.
“This general will just be another author of crimes and brutality against Ukrainian civilians. And the United States is determined to do all that we can to support the Ukrainians as they resist him and they resist the forces that he commands,” Sullivan said.
President Joe Biden, he said, has been absolutely clear from before this conflict began that the United States is prepared to work with its allies to defend every inch of NATO territory.
“That means every inch, including if mines showed up in a Romanian harbour or a Turkish harbour and caused damage or loss of life,” he said.
In another interview to ABC News, Sullivan said the images that are being seen out of Bucha and other cities have been tragic, they’ve been horrifying, they’ve been downright shocking, but they have not been surprising.
“We, in fact, before the war began, declassified intelligence and presented it indicating that there was a plan from the highest levels of the Russian government to target civilians who oppose the invasion, to cause violence against them, to organise efforts to brutalise them in order to try to terrorise the population and subjugate it. So this is something that was planned,” he said.
“Now in addition to that, I think there certainly are cases where individual soldiers or individual units got frustrated because the Ukrainians were beating them back. They had been told they were going to have a glorious victory and just ride into Kyiv without any opposition with the Ukrainians welcoming them. And when that didn’t happen, I do think some of these units engaged in these acts of brutality, these atrocities, these war crimes even without direction from above,” he said.
Responding to a question on ABC News, Sullivan said that the United States has not reached a determination on genocide.
“We haven’t yet reached a determination on genocide. That is a determination that we work through systematically. There is a unit at the State Department that gathers evidence and then makes a legal analysis because genocide is actually a legal determination,” he said.
“But let’s set legalities aside for a minute. I think we can all say that these are mass atrocities. These are war crimes. These are shocking and brutal acts that are completely unacceptable, beyond the pale for the international community. So whatever label one wants to affix to them, the bottom line is this, there must be accountability. And the United States will work with the international community to make sure there’s accountability,” he said. PTI LKJ RUP RUP RUP
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