Intersessional Interactive Dialogue on Ukraine
Statement by the Delegation of the United States of America
As delivered by Ambassador Michèle Taylor
Human Rights Council
December 15, 2022
Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you, also, to the High Commissioner and the Human Rights Monitoring Mission for this critical work to catalogue and report the atrocities committed in Putin’s war against Ukraine.
We share the world’s outrage upon reading your report’s gruesome descriptions of the unlawful killing of hundreds of civilians, including children, in the Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy regions while under Russia’s military control. Some were carried out by summary execution, which the report concluded are strongly indicated to constitute the war crime of willful killing. I was further horrified to read that torture and sexual violence were indicated before killings took place in some of these cases.
In other instances, victims were simply commuting to work, delivering food, visiting loved ones, or attempting to flee. Women, children, persons with disabilities, and older persons are particularly vulnerable.
We also take this opportunity to strongly condemn Russia’s relentless attacks on the infrastructure that the civilian population relies on for power, water, and heat during the bitter winter, effectively adding freezing to starvation as a weapon of war.
The United States is committed to supporting the countless victims of this atrocious war of aggression and holding those responsible to account.
We would love your thoughts on how we can all better protect the most vulnerable in view of civilian attacks.
The clear way to end this senseless suffering is for Russia to end the war it started.
We stand in solidarity with the brave people of Ukraine.
I thank you.