War in Ukraine, Live: Struggle Intensifies in Mariupol; Joe Biden accuses Vladimir Putin of perpetrating “genocide” in the country

Biden accuses Putin of ‘genocide’ for the first time It wasn’t a blunder: Joe Biden on Tuesday confirmed accusing his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, of perpetrating ‘genocide’ in Ukraine, hours after he used the word to the first time to qualify the situation in the country invaded by Moscow. “Yes, I called it a genocide,” replied the American president to journalists during a trip to Iowa. Until then, the American administration had not pronounced this word, used by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky. “It is increasingly clear that Putin is simply trying to erase the very idea of ​​being able to be a Ukrainian,” he added. Joe Biden asserted that if “the lawyers, at the international level”, decided on the qualification of genocide, “for [lui], it looks like it”. Claiming that the “evidence was mounting” regarding the “horrific things the Russians did in Ukraine”, the Democrat predicted that the world would “find out even more about the devastation”. A few hours earlier, during a speech devoted to the fight against inflation, Mr. Biden had already mentioned the term “genocide”. “Your family’s budget, your ability to refuel, none of that should depend on a dictator declaring war and committing genocide on the other side of the world,” he said. . “Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has driven up gasoline and food prices around the world,” the Democratic president said. The rise in consumer prices in March reached its fastest pace since December 1981, at 8.5% over one year, according to the consumer price index published Tuesday by the Labor Department.