https://ift.tt/vBY23oU United States, the European Union and the Group of Seven nations will move to suspend normal trade relations with Russia in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, U.S. President Joe Biden announced Friday, amid growing bipartisan pressure in Washington.
Revoking Russia’s “most favored nation” trade status allows the U.S. and its allies to begin the process of raising tariffs on many Russian goods, further weakening Russia’s economy, which the International Monetary Fund predicts will slide into a “deep recession” this year.
Each country must change Russia’s trading status in accordance with its own national procedures, U.S. officials said. In the U.S., the move requires an act of Congress, and both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have signaled their support.
“It’s going to make it harder for Russia to do business with the United States and doing it in unison with other nations to make up half of the global economy,” Biden said as he made the announcement at the White House.
“It will be another crushing blow to the Russian economy. It’s already suffering very badly from our sanctions,” Biden noted.
The U.S. and other allies previously imposed an array of unprecedented sanctions and export and banking restrictions designed to pressure
Russian President Vladimir Putin into ending his war against Ukraine, the largest in Europe since World War Two.
Earlier Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a broadcast video without elaborating that his military has reached a “strategic turning point.”
“It’s impossible to say how many days we will still need to free our land, but it is possible to say that we will do it because … we have reached a strategic turning point,” Zelenskyy said.
One day after Washington warned Moscow about what some observers describe as war crimes by Russian forces in Ukraine, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said during a visit to Romania that Putin shows no willingness to pursue a diplomatic solution to the conflict.
Putin disputed Harris’ claim Friday, saying without offering details that there have been positive developments in talks with Ukraine and that the negotiations “are now being held almost on a daily basis.”
Harris spoke in Bucharest as she met with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis and other officials on the second stop of a three-day trip to eastern Europe to discuss the worsening refugee crisis in the region.
On Thursday, U.S. officials said Russia is ”turning to a strategy of laying waste to population centers” in Ukraine, as high-level talks between the warring parties made no progress.
“We’ve seen very credible reports of deliberate attacks on civilians, which would under the Geneva Conventions constitute a war crime,” said State Department spokesman Ned Price, though he did not specifically accuse Russia of committing such crimes.
Russian President “Putin’s plan to quickly capture Ukraine, it is clear now, has failed,” Price said of the 2-week-old invasion. “So, he is now turning to a strategy of laying waste to population centers to try to break the will of the people of Ukraine, something he will not be able to do.”
Russia has denied targeting civilians in its invasion of Ukraine.
War crime allegations
Vice President Harris said in Poland earlier this week that she supports a United Nations inquiry into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that would look at “all alleged rights violations and abuses, and related crimes.”
“Absolutely there should be an investigation, and we should all be watching,” Harris said while speaking before a meeting in Warsaw with Polish President Andrzej Duda in a show of U.S. support for NATO’s allies in eastern Europe.
Harris’ comments came one day after a Russian airstrike on a children’s hospital with a maternity ward in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol killed at least three people, including a child, according to Ukrainian officials.
Duda added, “It is obvious to us that in Ukraine, Russians are committing war crimes.”
Ukrainian’s president called the hospital attack genocide and again called on NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, declaring, “You have power, but you seem to be losing humanity.”
Russia responded to allegations it bombed the hospital by calling it “fake news,” saying the building was a former hospital that had long been taken over by troops.
“Russia has definitely been violating international law since the beginning of the aggression,” Ivana Stradner, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who researches international law, told VOA via Skype. “We are seeing the killings of civilians. They’re using weapons that are contrary to international law. So certainly, there is numerous evidence that we can use to argue that Russia has been committing war crimes.”
She agreed with calls for an inquiry, but added, “I have to be very realistic about these things. I’m not very hopeful that we can hold Russia and Vladimir Putin accountable.”
The two bodies that prosecute war crimes, the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, are limited in what they can do, she explained.
War crimes cases are often referred to the international court by the U.N. Security Council, but Russia’s position as a permanent member of the council means it can easily veto such a referral.
Furthermore, Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. are not signatories to the statute that established the International Criminal Court, though Ukraine has accepted its jurisdiction. And finally, she said, these international courts don’t have their own police forces. They count on states to cooperate, which they do not always do.
On Wednesday, Amnesty International said an investigation it conducted into the March 3 Russian airstrike that reportedly killed 47 civilians in the city of Chernihiv concluded that the events there “may constitute a war crime.”
Security council meeting
The U.N. Security Council is scheduled to hold an emergency meeting on Friday concerning Russian allegations that Ukraine is producing chemical weapons.
The meeting is being held at the request of Russia. Russia’s production of biological weapons came under questioning by the council during a session on Syria.
Russia also has accused the U.S. of funding Ukraine’s research into biological weapons.
The U.S. and Ukraine have denied Russia’s allegations.
War marches on
Ukrainian officials also said no progress was made Thursday during high-level talks in Turkey.
Speaking at a news conference at the conclusion of the talks, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he and his Russian counterpart made no progress toward negotiating a 24-hour cease-fire, adding it appeared Russia will continue its offensive until Ukraine surrenders, something he said Kyiv will not do.
“I want to repeat that Ukraine has not surrendered, does not surrender, and will not surrender,” Kuleba said.
Speaking separately, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia’s military operation was going according to plan and accused the West of “behaving dangerously” over Ukraine.
Lavrov said Russia is ready to resume talks and added Putin would not refuse a meeting with Zelenskyy to discuss “specific” issues. He blamed Western powers for the war, maintaining Russia was forced to invade Ukraine because the West had rejected “our proposal on security guarantees.”
VOA’s Pentagon Correspondent Carla Babb and National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report. Some information also came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
Author webdesk@voanews.com (VOA News)
Source : VOA