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04/13/2022 07:55 PM EDT
Ned Price, Department Spokesperson
[]MR PRICE: Good afternoon, everyone. Sorry for the delayed start, but it has been a busy day with a sequence to it.
I don’t have anything formal at the top, beyond noting – and I’m sure you all have seen the announcement that has come from the White House, and you will see later today a statement from the Secretary noting that President Biden delegated to him authority to direct a drawdown, in this case, of up to $800 million for additional security assistance to our Ukrainian partners.
I think the key point here is that not in at least a generation have we seen this pace of security assistance flowing to a partner of ours – in this case, our Ukrainian partners, who are using this security assistance to extraordinary effect. And you can look at the progress, or lack thereof, on the part of Russian forces on the battlefields if you want a metric to evaluate the effectiveness of our Ukrainian partners and what they are able to do with their determination, their grit, their bravery, and with the assistance of the massive amount of security assistance that the United States and our partners have provided.
With this additional $800 million, we have provided more than $2.5 billion in security assistance since the Russian invasion began in February. We have provided more than $3.2 billion over the course of this administration. And that is just what the United States has done. If you add in what our partners and allies have done around the world, that number will grow even further, and we will continue to stand by our Ukrainian partners with all the assistance they require.
Francesco.
QUESTION: So you had something at the top to say. (Laughter.)
MR PRICE: Informal.
QUESTION: Just on the weapons and the military assistance that was just announced, so there are assistance and capacities that President Zelenskyy is asking that you’re still not giving to Ukraine, but there are assistance and capacities that you guys weren’t giving until now and that you’re now starting to deliver to Ukraine. Does that reflect a shift in your assessment of what would constitute an escalation or a risk of direct confrontation with Russia? Is that because you feel that, since they have moved from their full-scale war against Kyiv, there is a lesser risk about that confrontation?
MR PRICE: Well, I think it reflects a couple things. First, it reflects a conversation that we’ve been having with our Ukrainian partners since before Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine began in February. You recall, Francesco, that we started surging security assistance to Ukraine last year, when President Zelenskyy visited the White House, and it was a significant sum last year, well before the invasion started. And since then we have been in a concerted dialogue with our Ukrainian partners about precisely what it is that they need to defend themselves, to defend their freedom, to defend their territory and their sovereignty.
We most recently had an opportunity to meet with Foreign Minister Kuleba last week in Brussels. You probably heard him say that he had three items on his agenda: weapons, weapons, and weapons. He met with Secretary Blinken, and Secretary Blinken had three answers for him: yes, yes, and yes. And you saw today the fruits of some of those discussions.
And you are right that we are providing additional capacities that we have not previously been in a position to provide. We, pursuant to their request, are providing artillery, armored vehicles, helicopters, unmanned coastal defense vessels, engineering and field support equipment, and other assets that our Ukrainian partners will need to defend themselves.
But the other point is that the conflict in Ukraine with the Russian defeat for the battle of Kyiv, a city of 2.9 million people that the Russians apparently thought that they could take within a matter of hours or a few short days, with that – with Russia having lost that battle, Russia repositioning its forces, Russia training its sights more squarely on eastern Ukraine, on southern Ukraine, the nature of the conflict is changing as well. And so it would stand to reason that the precise forms of support will adapt to that changing reality to provide our Ukrainian partners with precisely what they need to fortify their positions in the east, in the south, to continue to beat back this Russian onslaught.
QUESTION: And are you, just to follow up, also scaling up intelligence sharing as it was reported by Wall Street Journal?
MR PRICE: We have been providing our Ukrainian partners with detailed information, strategic information, tactical information. Again, the very kind of information that they would need to defend themselves.
Humeyra.
QUESTION: Ned, on President Biden’s genocide comments yesterday, so does that reflect the view of the wider U.S. Government at the moment? And more importantly, after this, will the State Department launch a formal process for an atrocity determination?
MR PRICE: Well, Humeyra, a couple of things on that. First of all, you know because the Secretary announced it a couple of weeks ago now that we have for some time been taking a very close look at the atrocities that have been occurring on the part of Russia’s forces in Ukraine. We made the determination, the assessment I should say, that Russia’s forces have committed war crimes. That is a high threshold. It is our assessment, and the Secretary announced it not all that long ago that the atrocities the Russians have committed and the way in which they have committed them have reached that threshold of war crimes.
The President has been – has not hesitated to draw attention to the horrific acts, the atrocities that Russia’s forces have been committing almost since the very first hours of Russia’s invasion. And in some ways, tragically, this does not come as a surprise. Well before the Russian invasion started on February 24th, we released information, declassified intelligence information, indicating that we believed – we had reason to believe that Russia would seek to commit the very type, the very sort of atrocities that we are now seeing. The President also, as you heard, emphasized that it will be the task of international lawyers to determine whether what we are seeing meets that legal threshold of genocide. The President was basing his comments on the horrific atrocities that we’ve all seen in Mariupol, in Bucha, in Kharkiv, and you could go on.
QUESTION: Yeah, but there are State Department lawyers as well, and Secretary Blinken determined that Myanmar army, for example, committed genocide against the Rohingya, and there is a meticulous process for this. So is the State Department going to launch one of those processes?
MR PRICE: So we are engaged in a process at this very moment to work with partners around the world, but in the first instance our Ukrainian partners, to help them collect, to preserve, to document, and to share evidence of atrocities, potential war crimes, and yes, if that threshold, that legal threshold is reached, genocide. We are working very closely with the office of the Ukrainian prosecutor general, who has set up a team under her purview to initiate a criminal case with an eye towards potential prosecutions. In fact, our ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice will have an opportunity to speak, to meet virtually with the Ukrainian prosecutor general this week to determine what more we can be doing to help that effort to collect, to document, to preserve, and to share evidence with the prosecutor general, with her office, but also with the other accountability mechanisms that are – that have been established.
We were part of the effort to establish the commission of inquiry at the UN through our work on the Human Rights Council. We’ve been supportive of the OSCE’s Moscow Mechanism, a mechanism that issued preliminary findings today. There are other accountability mechanisms. Our ultimate goal is to ensure that at the end of the day, however long it takes – and sometimes, as we’ve acknowledged, these processes can take longer than any of us would like – but at the end of the day there is accountability.
QUESTION: Just to be super clear, your processes are for the other processes. You’re not going to launch your own?
MR PRICE: Right now we are supporting the processes that are underway.
QUESTION: Ned, speaking to OSCE, Ambassador Mike Carpenter today said that there was credible evidence of the use of certain agents, including possible chemical agents, on the people of Mariupol. And it kind of goes ahead of what the State Department has said up until now. Do you have any information that you could share with us with regard to this evidence?
MR PRICE: I —
QUESTION: And how it’s been further – how – where we are at this stage.
MR PRICE: I have to say, I’ve been a little perplexed by the coverage of Ambassador Carpenter’s comments because what Ambassador Carpenter said today was squarely in line with what we said yesterday, including what the Secretary said yesterday. The ambassador was referring to the fact that we had credible evidence prior to these reports emanating from Mariupol that Russian forces may use a variety of riot control agents – the tear gas that we talked about, potentially mixed with other agents that could cause even stronger symptoms – to weaken and to incapacitate entrenched Ukrainian fighters and even civilians in Russia’s effort to wrest Mariupol away from the Ukrainian people.
We are in the same position we were yesterday and from late in the day before that when these reports started to emerge. I understand that our Ukrainian partners are in the same position. We have not yet been able to confirm these reports, but we are in close communication and coordination with our Ukrainian partners, and we stand ready to assist their efforts.
Christina.
QUESTION: Ned?
MR PRICE: Same topic? Sure.
QUESTION: Yes. I wonder what legal actions can be taken after publishing this report. We know Washington is collecting information about possible war crimes. Since the United States is not part of International Criminal Court, can some cases be brought to local U.S. courts?
MR PRICE: Well, we are prioritizing accountability at the end of the day. And as I mentioned before, there are a variety of mechanisms that can ultimately lead to that accountability. When you look at potential jurisdictions, obviously, Ukraine may be at the top of that list. That is why we have prioritized our cooperation with the Ukrainian prosecutor general and her team, knowing that a criminal case – Ukraine in this case would be an appropriate jurisdiction for that.
But as I said before, there are a variety of accountability mechanisms. The ICC is one such mechanism. It is true that in the past, we have cooperated, we have provided information with the International Criminal Court. In fact, many of you may have seen a statement we released just a few days ago indicating and heralding, welcoming the start of a trial of a former Janjaweed commander who committed genocidal acts under the regime of – former regime of Omar al-Bashir in Sudan. That individual is being tried at the ICC based in part on evidence that the State Department itself collected.
So we are going to be in close coordination with our allies and partners around the world to determine which venue, which accountability mechanism, is best poised to bring about that accountability. Because at the end of the day – at the end of the day, that’s what we wish to see.
QUESTION: (Off-mike.)
QUESTION: There were reports that Moscow – oh.
QUESTION: Hold on. If the State Department’s not ready to declare what’s happening in Ukraine a genocide – it sounds like you’re not; you say you’re helping with other agencies with those investigations – did the President use that term prematurely?
MR PRICE: The President used that term based on the impressions that he has seen and that we all have seen. What we are doing here is we are assisting the effort that he also alluded to on the part of international lawyers to determine whether it meets that legal threshold. But the President was speaking to what all of us have seen.
QUESTION: But if that process is still in process – as you said it is; it’s – you’re helping to make that determination – should he not have used that phrase? Should he not have declared it a genocide?
MR PRICE: The President was speaking to the impression that he had garnered from watching the horrific footage that we’ve all seen from places like Mariupol, from places like Bucha, from Kharkiv, and from other places.
Now, he also said there is a complementary effort by international lawyers, a process that the State Department is plugged into and we’ll continue to support, to determine if there is a legal threshold that is met.
QUESTION: Can I just —
QUESTION: Can I follow up on that?
MR PRICE: I’ll go back to you. Yes, go ahead.
QUESTION: Okay. There were some reports that Moscow is forcibly sending thousands of Ukrainians to far-away Russian regions, including Siberia. Do you have any confirmation, and what is the State Department’s position on that?
MR PRICE: We’ve seen these reports. We are taking a close look at them. We find some of the reports that are emanating from the region to be credible, but I’m not in a position to confirm that specifically. What we have said, especially in besieged areas like Mariupol, what needs to happen, we need to see humanitarian corridors so that people can leave on their own free will, they can go to areas that are not under siege. As people can leave, humanitarian aid, humanitarian supplies can get in. Allowing people, as has happened in the past, to leave only to flee to places like Russia or Belarus, that is not humanitarian access. That is not a humanitarian corridor. That would constitute a potential trap for innocent civilians.
Conor.
QUESTION: Just a follow-up on Christina’s question. If this is the President’s personal opinion, what is the Secretary’s personal opinion about whether or not genocide is being conducted in Ukraine?
MR PRICE: You heard from the Secretary about the atrocities that have been committed. It was the Secretary who put out a statement that in our assessment and in the assessment of the Department of State that Russia’s forces have committed war crimes. On the part of the department, we are going to continue to collect, to analyze, to help preserve, disseminate, and share the evidence to determine if there are additional acts of war crimes, if there are additional atrocities, and if the evidence points to the genocidal intent and the legal threshold that goes along with it.
QUESTION: He’s not there yet, then?
MR PRICE: The – you’ve heard the Secretary speak to the level of atrocity, and really it is much less important what you call it rather than how you respond to it. And we are responding to it resolutely, by providing our Ukrainian partners with precisely what they need to defend themselves against this Russian aggression. Just today, as I said at the top, you saw another element of that with an additional $800 million that is flowing to our Ukrainian partners. We are providing them. We are holding Russia to account with the crippling sanctions and other economic measures that we promised well before this invasion began, with two goals in mind. One is to give our Ukrainian partners additional leverage at the negotiating table, and secondly, to push the Russians to negotiate in good faith, to actually sit down and seek a genuine diplomatic resolution to this war of choice that Vladimir Putin has opted to launch.
QUESTION: But just one thing that – to follow up both Christina and Conor, like, why not – why do you guys not have your own inquiry? Like, I understand that you’re supporting other efforts. I get that. But why —
MR PRICE: Would it be more satisfactory if we started our own duplicative effort —
QUESTION: No. I think, like, what needs to happen —
MR PRICE: — rather than supporting the mechanisms that, at the end of the day, are more likely to lead to accountability? If you want to talk about a jurisdiction that is likely to result in a criminal prosecution, it is much more likely to be in a place like Ukraine than Washington, D.C.
QUESTION: Right. So you think that the State Department process or anything that would come from U.S. Government would be more symbolic, and what you’re doing right now is —
MR PRICE: What we —
QUESTION: – would yield to more concrete results? That’s why you’re —
MR PRICE: What we are doing is the most effective means of achieving that ultimate goal of accountability.
QUESTION: Can I just ask one last question on this?
MR PRICE: Sure.
QUESTION: I’m just – can you explain for us the difference between the department making a determination about war crimes and choosing not to begin making your own determination about genocide yet? Is there some difference we’re missing here?
MR PRICE: We haven’t chosen not to make any determination. What we are doing is following the facts and the evidence wherever that leads. And we’re doing that in coordination and tandem with our allies and partners, including the Ukrainian prosecutor general. I think the other important point is that there are various labels that have been attached to the atrocities that we have all seen with our own eyes. Whether this is a war crime, whether this is an atrocity, whether this is genocide, it does not change our strategy. It does not give us any additional authorities to use.
What we are doing is continuing to support our Ukrainian partners. What we are doing is continuing to apply pressure to the Russians as a means to give our Ukrainian partners leverage and to push our – push the Russians to the negotiating table.
QUESTION: But the department made the war crime determination. So why are you not putting resources into making your own independent genocide determination as well? What’s the difference, is what I’m trying to understand.
MR PRICE: This is a process that will help further and that will lead to potential conclusions down the road. Right now we are focused on accountability. Right now we are providing evidence and helping to collect, to preserve, to analyze, to disseminate evidence and information to the Ukrainian prosecutor general. If you want to talk about what will have the most meaningful impact, it will be ensuring accountability. That’s what we’re focused on.
As we ensure accountability, the effort to collect, to document, to analyze, to preserve evidence of course will support any future determinations – again, whether those are additional instances of war crimes, whether those are additional atrocities, or whether what we are seeing or what we will see meets or will meet the legal definition of genocide.
QUESTION: All right. Can we just turn to something else? That – or do you have another question on this?
QUESTION: I was going to ask one more on this. Just with regard to the President’s comment, public comments about genocide, even when he made the comments about Putin being a war criminal a couple of weeks ago, you keep on talking about a legal process that’s underway. Is he at risk of undermining that legal process when he’s making determinations before the U.S. Government is officially prepared to do that? And how are you also speaking with allies about this? Because there’s obviously some cross-messaging that’s going on that publicly becomes a little confusing.
MR PRICE: This doesn’t seem confusing to us. What the President is doing is putting a very public spotlight on the atrocities that are taking place in Ukraine right now. For us, we want the world’s attention to remain trained on this. The fact that this conflict continues to garner the world’s focus for us, that is a good thing. It’s a good thing that – in knowing that this will continue to be a cause that is at the top of the conscience of the world.
We have been gratified by the amount of support our Ukrainian partners have received, not only the security assistance, but also the humanitarian assistance. And part and parcel of that is the attention that this continues to garner.
QUESTION: So the President’s position is not a position of the U.S. Government on genocide in Ukraine?
MR PRICE: Christina –
QUESTION: That’s a yes-or-no question.
MR PRICE: So, as the President said, international lawyers will make a legal determination as to whether genocide has occurred or in the future may occur.
QUESTION: That’s a no.
QUESTION: And just back to a different topic – same topic, but different part of it – we’ve seen a lot of reports of Russians fleeing Russia, and I’m just wondering if this department is doing anything to provide support to the Russians who are fleeing their country in a similar way that you guys are providing support to Ukrainians who have to flee from the war.
MR PRICE: Well, what I would say is that we have been very careful to distinguish between the Kremlin, between the Russian Government, and the Russian people. This is a war that the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin himself has chosen to launch against the people of Ukraine. We know that there are countless Russians who are vehemently opposed to what their government is doing, purportedly in their name.
There have been reports of Russians fleeing, of Russians being forced to flee, being pressured to flee because they have voiced opposition to this. We know that, across the country, more than 15,000 Russians have been detained for peacefully taking to the streets to show their dissatisfaction and their opposition with what their government is doing.
If there are Russians who are fleeing their country and who qualify for – to emigrate to the United States under a legal pathway, of course, that is something we will support. You have heard the President make the announcement that the United States will welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainians and others from the region who are affected by Russia’s aggression. So it’s difficult to speak in any particular – with any – to the specifics of this. But if there are individuals who, for one reason or another, are forced to flee from this aggression, that is something that we’ll look for or that we would look to support.
QUESTION: Following up on that, can you say how many Ukrainians have been brought into the United States as part of that 100,000 pledge so far? I know that you’ve spoken specifically to the Lautenberg program.
MR PRICE: That’s right.
QUESTION: But in addition to that, is there any other numbers you can provide?
MR PRICE: Well, so the President said that we would welcome up to 100,000 who were fleeing this violence from the region. As I said yesterday, we are at the moment working out with our partners across government, including our partners at the Department of Homeland Security, how precisely – the legal pathways that we will pursue to welcome these individuals.
We are going to look at the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, we’re going to look at family reunification programs, we’re going to look at parole, we are going to look at all legal authorities. So we’ll have more details on this before too long, and when we do, we’ll share them with all of you.
QUESTION: French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen just said today that, if she’s elected, she will push for a strategy of rapprochement between NATO and Russia, once the war is over. Is that a stance that you would share that concerns you, since that it one of the countries that is more active in engagement with Russia among your allies?
MR PRICE: Those comments were made in the context of a presidential campaign. That’s a decision the French people will need to make.
Yes, Conor.
QUESTION: Can I follow up on Francesco’s earlier question about the helicopters? What’s the difference between helicopters and airplanes in terms of the threat that it could produce in the U.S. providing them?
MR PRICE: So Conor, first of all, the helicopters are something that our Ukrainian partners have requested as part of what they would need to defend themselves against Russia’s aggression.
QUESTION: They’ve also requested war planes, though, and the administration has not approved a plan to provide those.
MR PRICE: Has not approved a plan to provide MiGs, which we don’t have.
QUESTION: Yes.
MR PRICE: That’s what you’re referring to?
QUESTION: Yes.
MR PRICE: Okay.
QUESTION: But, so the assessment at the time was that you couldn’t do so because it was an escalatory threat in the eyes of the Russian Government.