The Biden administration on Wednesday made a formal determination that Russian troops have committed war crimes in Ukraine and said it would work with others to prosecute offenders, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
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"Today, I can announce that, based on information currently available, the US government assesses that members of Russia's forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine," Blinken said in a statement released as he was traveling to Brussels with President Joe Biden for an emergency summit of NATO leaders.
The assessment was based on a "careful review" of public and intelligence sources since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last month, he said.
America's top diplomat said the United States would share that information with allies, partners and international institutions tasked with investigating allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
"We've seen numerous credible reports of indiscriminate attacks and attacks deliberately targeting civilians, as well as other atrocities. Russia's forces have destroyed apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, critical infrastructure, civilian vehicles, shopping centers, and ambulances, leaving thousands of innocent civilians killed or wounded," Blinken said said.
He cited attacks on the civilian population in the besieged city of Mariupol and elsewhere.
Neither Russia nor the US recognizes the authority of the International Criminal Court at The Hague, presenting obvious difficulties for seeking accountability for war crimes committed in Ukraine.
The US could still assist a prosecution before the court, which earlier opened an investigation into atrocities committed in Ukraine, by helping to gather evidence against Russian forces in Ukraine, using some of the vast abilities it has deployed to track and monitor what has been happening in the conflict.
The US could also provide support and backing to a commission of inquiry established by the UN Human Rights Council.
War crimes experts have suggested that Russian forces and government officials could also be prosecuted in countries such as Spain and Germany, where legal codes recognize universal jurisdiction, or that the US could bring criminal charges.
Under US law, an American citizen would have to be among the victims for charges to be brought under existing statutes.
Two Democratic members of Congress urged Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday to open an investigation into war crimes for the deaths of two Americans in Ukraine – journalist Brent Renaud and Jimmy Hill, who was killed while waiting in a bread line.
"Both Mr. Renaud and Mr. Hill were non-combatants who were not taking any active part in the hostilities, wrote Reps. Ted Lieu and Rep. Eric Swalwell, both from California.
The Department of Justice did not immediately comment on the letter.
NATO estimated on Wednesday that 7,000 to 15,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in four weeks of war in Ukraine, where fierce resistance from the country's defenders has denied Moscow the lightning victory it sought.
By way of comparison, Russia lost about 15,000 troops over 10 years in Afghanistan.
A senior NATO military official said the alliance's estimate was based on information from Ukrainian authorities, what Russia has released – intentionally or not – and intelligence gathered from open sources.
Ukraine has released little information about its own military losses, and the West has not given an estimate, but President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said nearly two weeks ago that about 1,300 Ukrainian servicemen had been killed.
When Russia unleashed its Feb. 24 invasion in Europe's biggest offensive since World War II, a swift toppling of Ukraine's government seemed likely. But with Wednesday marking four full weeks of fighting, Moscow is bogged down in a grinding military campaign.
Zelenskyy, who will speak to NATO members by video on Thursday, also said he is asking the alliance to provide "effective and unrestricted" support to Ukraine, including any weapons the country needs to fend off the Russian invasion.
With its ground forces slowed or stopped by hit-and-run Ukrainian units armed with Western-supplied weapons, Russian President Vladimir Putin's troops are bombarding targets from afar, falling back on the tactics they used in reducing cities to rubble in Syria and Chechnya.
A senior US defense official said Wednesday that Russian ground forces appear to be digging in and setting up defensive positions 15 to 20 kilometers (9 to 12 miles) outside Kyiv, the capital, as they make little to no progress toward the city center.
He said it appears the forces are no longer trying to advance into the city, and in some areas east of Kyiv, Ukrainian troops have pushed Russian soldiers farther away.
Also on Wednesday, the US State Department says Russia has begun the process of expelling several more diplomats from the US embassy in Moscow.
The department said it received a list of diplomats on Wednesday who have been declared "persona non grata" by the Russian foreign ministry. It didn't say how many diplomats were affected by the order, which generally results in the expulsion of those targeted within 72 hours.
The Russian foreign ministry summoned US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan on Monday to protest President Joe Biden's description of Russian leader Vladimir Putin as a "war criminal" over the invasion of Ukraine. After that meeting, Russia warned that it was close to severing diplomatic relations with the United States, which would be an unprecedented move.
The State Department called Wednesday's move "Russia's latest unhelpful and unproductive step" in relations between the countries. It urged Russia "to end its unjustified expulsions of US diplomats and staff."
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Thursday morning saw Russia's communications regulator block the news aggregator service of Alphabet Inc's Google, accusing it of allowing access to what it calls fake material about the country's military operation in Ukraine, Interfax news agency said on Wednesday.
"We've confirmed that some people are having difficulty accessing the Google News app and website in Russia and that this is not due to any technical issues on our end," Google said in a statement.
"We've worked hard to keep information services like News accessible to people in Russia for as long as possible."
Interfax said Roskomnadzor, the regulator, had acted on a request from the office of Russia's prosecutor general.
"The American online news resource in question provided access to numerous publications and materials containing inauthentic and publicly important information about the course of the special military operation on the territory of Ukraine," Interfax quoted the regulator as saying.
A new Russian law makes it illegal to report any event that could discredit the Russian military.
