President Biden calls atrocities in Ukraine 'genocide' for the first time

thank you very yeah, I'm doing everything within my power by executive orders to bring down the price and address the Putin prices. In fact, we've already made progress since March, inflation data was collected, your family budget, your ability to fill up your tank, None of it should hinge on whether a dictator declares war and commits genocide and half a world away to help deal with this Putin price hike. I've authorized the release of one million barrels per day for the next six months from our Strategic Petroleum Reserve. This is by far the largest release of our National Reserve in history. It's a wartime bridge to increase oil supply as we work with us producer, oil producers to ramp up their production this year. Today, I'm announcing that the environmental and I don't think as much of announcements already broken out Pretty much the last 24 hours. But the Environmental Protection Agency is planning to issue an emergency waiver, Allow E 15 gasoline that uses more ethanol from home grown crops to be sold across the United States this summer in order to increase fuel supply. But here's what it means. E 15 is about 10 cents a gallon cheaper than any 10 and some gas stations offer an even bigger discount. But many of the gas stations that sell it here in Iowa Illinois Minnesota Wisconsin pennsylvania are required to stop selling in the summer. But with this waiver on June one, you're not going to show up at your local gas station and see your bag over the pump that has the cheapest gas, You're gonna be able to keep filling up with E 15 and it's gonna solve the whole problem.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday said Russia's war in Ukraine amounted to genocide, accusing President Vladimir Putin of trying to “wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian."“Yes, I called it genocide," he told reporters in Iowa shortly before boarding Air Force One to return to Washington. “It’s become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian."At an earlier event in Menlo, Iowa, addressing spiking energy prices resulting from the war, Biden had implied that he thought Putin was carrying out genocide against Ukraine, but offered no details. Neither he nor his administration announced new consequences for Russia or assistance to Ukraine following Biden's public assessment.Biden said it would be up to lawyers to decide if Russia's conduct met the international standard for genocide, as Ukrainian officials have claimed, but said “it sure seems that way to me.”“More evidence is coming out literally of the horrible things that the Russians have done in Ukraine, and we’re only going to learn more and more about the devastation and let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not it qualifies,” he said.Just last week Biden said he did not believe Russia's actions amounted to genocide, just that they constituted “war crimes.”During a trip to Europe last month, Biden faced controversy for a nine-word statement seemingly supporting regime change in Moscow, which would have represented a dramatic shift toward direct confrontation with another nuclear-armed country. “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power," Biden said.He clarified the comments days later, saying: “I was expressing the moral outrage that I felt toward this man. I wasn’t articulating a policy change.”Past American leaders often have dodged formally declaring bloody campaigns such as Russia’s in Ukraine as genocide, hesitating to trigger an obligation under an international genocide convention that requires signing countries to intervene once genocide is formally identified. That obligation was seen as blocking President Bill Clinton from declaring Rwandan Hutus’ killing of 800,000 ethnic Tutsis in 1994 as genocide, for example.—Miller reported from Washington. AP writer Ellen Knickmeyer contributed.

DES MOINES, Iowa —

President Joe Biden on Tuesday said Russia's war in Ukraine amounted to genocide, accusing President Vladimir Putin of trying to “wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian."

“Yes, I called it genocide," he told reporters in Iowa shortly before boarding Air Force One to return to Washington. “It’s become clearer and clearer that Putin is just trying to wipe out the idea of even being a Ukrainian."

At an earlier event in Menlo, Iowa, addressing spiking energy prices resulting from the war, Biden had implied that he thought Putin was carrying out genocide against Ukraine, but offered no details. Neither he nor his administration announced new consequences for Russia or assistance to Ukraine following Biden's public assessment.

Biden said it would be up to lawyers to decide if Russia's conduct met the international standard for genocide, as Ukrainian officials have claimed, but said “it sure seems that way to me.”

“More evidence is coming out literally of the horrible things that the Russians have done in Ukraine, and we’re only going to learn more and more about the devastation and let the lawyers decide internationally whether or not it qualifies,” he said.

Just last week Biden said he did not believe Russia's actions amounted to genocide, just that they constituted “war crimes.”

During a trip to Europe last month, Biden faced controversy for a nine-word statement seemingly supporting regime change in Moscow, which would have represented a dramatic shift toward direct confrontation with another nuclear-armed country. “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power," Biden said.

He clarified the comments days later, saying: “I was expressing the moral outrage that I felt toward this man. I wasn’t articulating a policy change.”

Past American leaders often have dodged formally declaring bloody campaigns such as Russia’s in Ukraine as genocide, hesitating to trigger an obligation under an international genocide convention that requires signing countries to intervene once genocide is formally identified. That obligation was seen as blocking President Bill Clinton from declaring Rwandan Hutus’ killing of 800,000 ethnic Tutsis in 1994 as genocide, for example.

—

Miller reported from Washington. AP writer Ellen Knickmeyer contributed.

President Biden calls atrocities in Ukraine 'genocide' for the first time

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