"Never before I have seen so large-scale and brutal horrors": Samantha Power on the Russian war crimes in Ukraine

The head of USAID said this during the briefing after the visit to Kyiv.

“With regard to my own experience, prior to joining first, the Obama Administration, now the Biden Administration, I was a war correspondent. I've documented war crimes and atrocities all around the world, in different phases of my career and in different ways. What I have never seen before is atrocities being committed at scale by a country whose military is that of a superpower. So it's to combine such sizable military power with such brutal and inhumane, atrocious, indifference to human life. It's that combination that has been so ghastly to behold,” she said.

Samantha Power emphasized that now it is important to support Ukraine in documenting Russia's war crimes. And she said that the USAID program works in Ukraine to support the documentation of war crimes even after Russia annexed Crimea and a large part of Donbas.

“When Russia invaded anew – including attempting to take this capital city before they were roundly defeated – we expanded that pre-existing programming”, - Samantha Power added.

She emphasized that it is very important, first of all, to conduct an internal investigation, and at the same time, the United States and other allied countries of Ukraine have launched a mechanism for the protection of human rights. The International Court of Justice is involved in gathering evidence and supporting the investigation of Russian war crimes in Ukraine, and 22 offices are currently collecting testimony and evidence.

“We'll be in very close consultation, of course, with the Ukrainian authorities about what they think ultimately the right distribution of accountability looks like given the range of actors involved”, Power added.