Trump administration pulls US out of body investigating Ukraine invasion
Russia and allies were target of International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine
The Trump administration is withdrawing from an international body formed to investigate responsibility for the invasion of Ukraine in the latest sign that the White House is adopting a posture favouring Vladimir Putin.
The
Department of Justice said it was pulling out of the International
Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine
(ICPA) two years after the Biden administration joined it with a
commitment to hold Putin, Russia’s president, to account for the 2022 invasion and subsequent crimes committed by Russian forces.
An announcement by the justice department was expected later on Monday.
The centre was established to hold the leaders of Russia
and its allies in Belarus, North Korea and Iran accountable for a
category of crimes listed as aggression under international law for
undertaking and supporting the attack.
Merrick Garland, the US attorney general during Joe Biden’s presidency, announced
that the US would contribute $1m to the organisation, based in the
Hague, in November 2023, making it the only non-European country to send
a prosecutor to take part in the centre’s investigation, along with
prosecutors from Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic states, Romania and the
international criminal court.
“The United States stands in steadfast and unwavering support for the people of Ukraine as they defend their democracy against the brutal and unjust war being waged by the Russian regime,” Garland said at the time.
On Monday, the New York Times cited an internal letter from the group’s parent organisation, the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust).
“The
US authorities have informed me that they will conclude their
involvement in the ICPA,” Michael Schmid, Eurojust’s president wrote.
He
said the centre’s work would continue without US participation, with
the group “fully committed” to holding accountable “those responsible
for core international crimes”.
The decision
follows weeks of tension between Donald Trump and Ukraine’s president,
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, amid efforts by Washington to broker an end to the
three-year war between Russia and Ukraine.
After
Trump berated Zelenskyy publicly in the White House, the US suspended
military assistance and intelligence sharing to Ukraine, although they
were subsequently restored after Kyiv supported American calls for a
ceasefire.
Trump had earlier called Zelenskyy
“a dictator without election”, falsely accused him of provoking the
invasion and said Putin wanted to end the war – although the Russian
leader has yet to agree to a ceasefire.
The
justice department also said it was reducing the work of its war crimes
accountability team, set up by Garland in 2022 to hold Russia
accountable for atrocities committed following its invasion of Ukraine.
Garland
said at the time that “there is no hiding place for war criminals” and
vowed that the department would “pursue every avenue of accountability
for those who commit war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine”.
The
unit provided logistical help, training and direct assistance to
overburdened Ukrainian prosecutors, who are investigating more than
150,000 possible war crimes, including the summary execution of
prisoners, the targeted bombing of civilians and torture.