Vice President Harris on Thursday affirmed U.S. commitment to the NATO alliance and its collective defense during a trip to Poland amid Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, and also voiced support for a war crimes investigation into Russia over its strikes on civilian areas.
“The United States commitment to Article 5 is ironclad,” Harris said at a news conference in Warsaw following a meeting with Polish President Andrzej Duda. “The United States is prepared to defend every inch of NATO territory. The United States takes seriously that an attack against one is an attack against all.”
Harris also announced that two Patriot missile-defense systems that the U.S. had promised to send to Poland had been delivered. And she said that the U.S. would contribute $50 million through the United Nations food program to assist with humanitarian aid to Ukraine.
Harris condemned Russian attacks on civilian areas in Ukraine — calling them “atrocities of unimaginable proportion” — including the strike on a maternity hospital in the city of Mariupol.
The vice president also expressed U.S. support for a U.N. war crimes investigation into Russia, saying the U.S. would participate in the probe at the International Court of Justice “as is appropriate and necessary.”
“We all watched the television coverage of just yesterday,” Harris said.
“Pregnant women going for health care? Being injured by, I don’t know a missile, a bomb? In an unprovoked and unjustified war where a powerful country is trying to take over another country?”
“Absolutely there should be an investigation and we should all be watching,” she said.
Harris’s trip comes about two weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich PutinReporter in Lviv says Ukrainians ‘want to be able to fight for themselves’ UK to urge West to ‘ramp up the global pressure on Putin’ Overnight Defense & National Security — US rules out combat aircraft for Ukraine MORE launched a military invasion of Ukraine that has triggered international economic sanctions.
Speaking alongside Harris on Thursday, Duda said that nearly 1.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine into Poland since the invasion.
Harris commended the Polish government and people for taking in refugees and said the U.S. was prepared to provide support.
