However, some analysts suggested that Mr Biden’s remark may have “cost a lot of people their lives” by jeopardising ongoing peace negotiations with Russia.
Harry Kazianis, a senior director at the US Center for the National Interest, told The Telegraph: “I don’t think [Biden] understands the ramifications of it. I mean, when you call somebody a war criminal, that also signals that you don’t intend to negotiate.
“It’s going to be very hard for Putin to just take that comment and just keep [negotiating]. You could make the argument that Joe Biden cost a lot of people their lives with that comment, to be honest.”
The Biden administration had hitherto avoided calling Putin a war criminal to preserve the chance of negotiating an end to the war with Moscow.
US officials later said that Mr Biden was speaking “as a human” rather than delivering a US legal determination as they attempted to walk back the comment.
“When you are speaking from the heart, speaking as a human, and you’re seeing what we’ve all seen… it’s hard not to walk away with that conclusion,” Ned Price, a spokesman for the US state department, told CNN.
However, he added “there is a formal process here at the department under international humanitarian law to document war crimes” which has not been completed.
The Kremlin said: “Such statements by Mr Biden are absolutely impermissible, unacceptable and unforgivable.”
It is not clear what, if any, practical implications there are of the US president’s comments.
