Kyiv confident US aid will continue as UN inquiry finds evidence of more Russian war crimes

Kyiv said it was confident of “unwavering bipartisan support” from the United States despite funding disputes in Washington, as United Nations-mandated investigators found more evidence of Russian war crimes, indiscriminate attacks and deportation of children in Ukraine.

US president Joe Biden spoke to Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskiy and used a television address to argue that billions of dollars in military aid for Ukraine, Israel and other allies were crucial to protecting the US and other democracies.

“The unwavering bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States is incredibly encouraging for all of our warriors and for our entire nation. America’s investment in Ukraine’s defence will ensure long-term security for all of Europe and the world,” Mr Zelenskiy said.

“During our call, president [Joe] Biden sent a strong message of US support for Ukraine – for as long as it takes to prevail.

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“Ukrainians know how important unity is to defend against terror and aggression – the unity here, inside Ukraine, in partner states, including in the US, and around the world.”

In his television address, Mr Biden compared Palestinian militant group Hamas – which killed some 1,400 Israelis this month in a raid from the Gaza Strip – with Russian president Vladimir Putin, whose all-out invasion of Ukraine has killed and injured hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians and displaced millions of Ukrainians.

“When terrorists don’t pay a price for their terror, when dictators don’t pay a price for their aggression ... they keep going and the cost and the threats to America and the world keep rising. So [if] we don’t stop Putin’s appetite for power and control [of] Ukraine, he won’t limit himself just to Ukraine,” Mr Biden said, warning of a possible future attack on a Nato state.

“Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: they both want to annihilate a neighbouring democracy.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said “such rhetoric is hardly suitable for responsible heads of state and such rhetoric can hardly be acceptable for us; we do not accept such a tone towards the Russian Federation and towards our president”.

The UN-mandated Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said it had “documented further evidence that Russian authorities have committed indiscriminate attacks and the war crimes of torture, rape and other sexual violence, and deportation of children to the Russian Federation”.

“The investigations confirmed the commission’s previous finding that Russian authorities have used torture in a widespread and systematic way” in occupied parts of Ukraine, it said in a report to the UN General Assembly on Friday.

“The commission’s recent investigations in the regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia show that rape and other sexual violence were often committed together with additional acts of violence against the victims, including severe beatings, strangling, suffocating, slashing, shooting next to the head of the victim and wilful killing.”

Russia denies targeting civilians in Ukraine. In March, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Mr Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, his commissioner for children’s rights, over their alleged role in the deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children.