US withdraws from investigating Russia's war crimes against Ukraine - NYT
Photo: Trump ends investigation into Putin's war crimes (Getty Images)
The US Department of Justice has quietly informed European officials that the United States is withdrawing from the multinational group. It was created to investigate the actions of people responsible for the invasion of Ukraine, including Vladimir Putin, The New York Times reports.
The decision to withdraw from the International Center for the Prosecution of Crimes of Aggression against Ukraine is the latest evidence of the Donald Trump administration's departure from Joseph Biden's commitment to hold Putin personally accountable.
The group was created to hold the Russian leadership, as well as its allies in Belarus, North Korea, and Iran, accountable for a category of crimes defined under international law and treaties as aggression that violates the sovereignty of another country. The Biden administration joined the center in 2023.
According to sources familiar with the situation, the decision is expected to be announced on March 17 in an email to staff and members of the group's umbrella organization, the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, better known as Eurojust.
The United States was the only country outside of Europe to cooperate with the group, sending a senior Justice Department prosecutor to The Hague to work with investigators from Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Romania.
The Trump administration is also scaling back the work done by the War Crimes Accountability Team, which was created in 2022 by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland and staffed by experienced prosecutors. It was designed to coordinate the Justice Department's efforts to bring to justice Russians responsible for atrocities committed after the full-scale invasion three years ago.
“There is no hiding place for war criminals,” Garland said in announcing the unit.
He added that the ministry “will pursue every avenue of accountability for those who commit war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine.”
International group
During the Biden administration, a group known as WarCAT has focused on an important support role: providing overburdened Ukrainian prosecutors and law enforcement agencies with logistical support, training, and direct assistance in bringing war crimes charges committed by Russians to Ukrainian courts.
The team has indeed initiated one significant case. In December 2023, US prosecutors used the war crimes law for the first time since it was enacted nearly three decades ago to indict four Russian soldiers in absentia for the torture of an American living in Ukraine's Kherson region.
President Trump has moved closer to Putin by clashing with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, going so far as to falsely suggest that Ukraine played a role in provoking Russia's brutal and illegal military invasion.
“You should have never started it,” Trump said in February, referring to Ukraine's leaders. “You could have made a deal.” He went on to call Zelenskyy a “Dictator without Elections” and said he had “done a terrible job” in office.
The Trump administration has not given any reason for the withdrawal from the investigation team, other than the same explanation as for other personnel and policy moves: the need to reallocate resources, sources said.
