Sergey Guneev | Kremlin Sputnik via Reuters WASHINGTON – The Biden administration is set to announce additional sanctions on Wednesday against Russian financial institutions, as well as Kremlin officials and members of their families, three people familiar with the matter told NBC News. The new package of sanctions, taken in a binding step with the European Union’s allies and the Group of Seven, will also ban new investments in Russia and state-owned enterprises, sources said. The news of the additional measures comes after rounds of coordinated sanctions that led Russia beyond Iran and North Korea to the country with the most sanctions in the world. The measures have hurt the Russian economy as Moscow promotes its neighbor’s brutal invasion. The new sanctions come amid global outrage over growing evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Over the weekend, Ukrainian officials claimed that hundreds of civilians had been tortured and killed in Bukha by Russian troops. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the aftermath in the suburban city near Kyiv, which he saw firsthand on Monday as “genocide.” He blamed Russia for war crimes. In a dramatic appearance at the United Nations on Tuesday, Zelensky called for a Nuremberg-style tribunal to investigate and prosecute Russian war crimes. “The massacre in our city of Bucha is just one, unfortunately, just one of the many examples of what the conquerors have been doing on our land for the last 41 days,” Zelensky said in a nearly 20-minute speech, adding that “the world has not seen more »what Russia has done elsewhere in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appears on screen as he addresses members of the Spanish parliament via video link, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Madrid, Spain, April 5, 2022. John Medina | Reuters The United States and its European allies have previously accused Russia of committing war crimes in Ukraine, citing evidence that the country is deliberately targeting civilian sites. Russia has described its actions in Ukraine as “special operations” and denied that it was attacking civilians. More than 1,400 people, including 61 children, have been killed since Russia invaded its former Soviet neighbor on February 24, according to the United Nations. He added that the death toll is likely to be higher as the armed conflict has delayed reports. UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told the UN Security Council on Tuesday that Russia’s war had caused more than a quarter of Ukraine’s population to flee the country. “Current data on displacement tell us that more than 11.3 million people have now been forced to flee their homes and of those 4.2 million are now refugees,” Griffiths said. Children who fled the war in Ukraine are resting inside a temporary refugee shelter that was an abandoned TESCO supermarket after being transferred from the Polish-Ukrainian border on March 8, 2022 to Przemysl, Poland. Omar Brands Getty Images On Monday, President Joe Biden called Russian leader Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” and said he should be tried for ordering violence in Ukraine. “This guy is brutal and what is happening in Bucha is outrageous and everyone has seen it,” Biden told reporters. He added, “I think it’s a war crime … He should be held accountable.” Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, reiterated similar sentiments and said the State Department would assist in the UN investigation into possible war crimes. Before traveling to Belgium ahead of the NATO-G-7 summit, Foreign Minister Antony Blinken described reports of Russian war crimes in Ukraine as “more than credible”. “What we saw in Bucha is not the accidental act of a rogue unit. It is a deliberate campaign to kill, torture, rape, commit atrocities,” Blinken told reporters traveling with him. “The reports are more than credible. The data is there for the public to see.” Earlier on Tuesday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters that the alliance was committed to supporting the UN International Criminal Court investigation. “Targeting and killing civilians is a war crime. All the facts must be proven and all those responsible for these atrocities must be brought to justice,” Stoltenberg said, adding that the alliance had credible evidence of war crimes committed in Bo. and in other Ukrainian cities.
