U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that the death and destruction in Bucha, Ukraine, reportedly at the hands of Russian forces shows a "deliberate campaign to kill, to torture, to rape, to commit atrocities."
Blinken spoke to reporters at Joint Base Andrews before boarding a plane to Brussels for the Western military alliance's annual spring meeting of foreign ministers.
He said the reports of atrocities emerging in Bucha, a suburb of the capital of Kyiv were "more than credible" and added it "reinforces our determination and the determination of countries around the world to make sure that one way or another, one day or another, there is accountability for those who committed these acts, for those who ordered them."
Ukrainian forces in recent days retook Bucha from the Russians and found the bodies of more than 400 civilians lying dead in the streets or in mass graves, some with their hands bound and shot at close range.
Blinken didn't directly address a question of whether the United States has evidence linking the atrocities on the ground in Busha to Russian officials back in Moscow. Instead, he said the United States is working to support efforts to document evidence by Ukraine's prosecutor-general, the U.N. Human Rights Council's commission of inquiry, and others.
Blinken noted that before the war began, U.S. officials warned that atrocities "would be part of the Russian campaign."
"Horrifically, tragically, what we're seeing in Bucha and in other places supports that," Blinken said.
He said the United States will work with its NATO and G-7 allies to support Ukraine and increase pressure on Russia, especially with meetings among both groups later this week in Brussels.
-ABC News' Conor Finnegan