The United States has said it will hold Russia accountable for “war crimes” and take action against companies and nations working with Iran’s drone program following a series of attacks on Ukrainian cities.
This followed an announcement made on October 19, 2022, by the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who called Russia’s strikes on Ukrainian civil infrastructure “war crimes” during a speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
At least four people, including a couple expecting a baby were killed on Monday morning after a drone struck an apartment building in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Russia carried out more than a hundred strikes with Iranian kamikaze drones, which officials in Tehran have reportedly denied selling the weapons to Moscow.
The attacks were on government infrastructure, residential buildings, and power plants, it was said, damaging one-third of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in its wake. Speaking in his regular evening address on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the air raids were continuing.
“Right now, there is a new Russian drone attack,” he said. “There are [drones] that have been shot down.”
US President Joe Biden’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, told reporters the White House “strongly condemns Russia’s missile strikes today” and said the attack “continues to demonstrate [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s brutality”.
Referring to a new $725m military aid package announced for Ukraine last Friday, Jean-Pierre said: “We will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes.
“We will continue to impose costs on Russia, hold them accountable for its war crimes.”
The Russians are “attacking critical infrastructure like power plants, hospitals, the things that people need in their daily lives that are not military targets,” Blinken told reporters at Stanford University in California.
“It is a sign of increased desperation by Russia, but it’s also a sign of the levels that they will stoop to and that we’ve seen repeatedly when it comes to targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure,” Blinken said.
France, the United Kingdom and the United States have said that Iran supplying drones, officially known as uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), to Russia would violate a UN Security Council resolution that endorsed the now moribund 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and six powers.
The resolution’s ban on Iranian exports of conventional weapons expired in October 2020, but restrictions on exports related to ballistic missiles that could deliver nuclear weapons remain in force until October next year.
