U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin (L) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley (R) take part in a news briefing on the Pentagon May 23, 2022 in Arlington, Virginia.
Alex Wong | Getty Images
WASHINGTON – The Pentagon on Wednesday slammed Russia’s barrage of missile strikes across Ukrainian cities and said that Moscow’s deliberate targeting of energy infrastructure is a war crime.
“While assessments are ongoing, yesterday’s strikes looked like they launched not less than 60 missiles they usually can have launched upwards of 90 and even perhaps 100,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley told reporters on the Pentagon alongside Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
“It was likely the most important wave of missiles that we have seen because the starting of the war,” Milley said, adding that “the deliberate targeting of the civilian power grid, causing excessive collateral damage and unnecessary suffering on the civilian population is a war crime.”
Milley added that greater than 1 / 4 of Ukrainians are estimated to be without power throughout the country and that many families might be without heat as the cruel winter season approaches.
Austin called Russia’s missile and rocket attacks on civilian infrastructure “deliberate cruelty” and called on Moscow to finish its “war of selection.”
“Russia could put an end to it [the war] straight away, but they will not. They’ll proceed that fight until the winter as best we are able to tell,” Milley added.
The 2 leaders’ remarks to reporters on the Pentagon followed the seventh meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a coalition of nearly 50 countries supporting Kyiv’s military needs.
Austin reaffirmed U.S. commitment to offer Ukraine with additional security assistance for “so long as it takes. He added that to this point the Biden administration has allocated greater than $18 billion in weapons and aid.
“All Ukraine is asking for is the means to fight and we’re determined to offer meaning,” Milley said.
The meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group got here hours after an explosion in Poland sparked Western concerns that Russia’s conflict in Ukraine was spilling over into NATO member countries.
Earlier on Wednesday, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said there was no indication that the missile that struck the Polish border village was deliberate.
Stoltenberg added that initial assessments found that the incident was attributable to an air defense missile launched to “defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missile attacks.”
He added that Russia was ultimately guilty, though, since Moscow provoked the conflict with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in late February.
“Let me be clear, this is just not Ukraine’s fault. Russia bears ultimate responsibility because it continues its illegal war against Ukraine,” he said.
Austin echoed similar sentiments from the Pentagon, saying, “the world knows that Russia bears ultimate responsibility for this incident.”
Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelenskyy requested access to the location in Poland and for Ukrainian inspectors to hitch the continued investigation to achieve a greater understanding of the explosion that took place.
