Putin can sleep peacefully: The US finally refuses to prosecute Russians for aggression
17 March 12:18
The U.S. Department of Justice has quietly informed European officials that the United States has withdrawn from the multinational group created to investigate the actions of the Russian leadership responsible for the invasion of Ukraine. This was reported by The New York Times, citing people with knowledge of the situation, Komersant ukrainskyi reports.
The group was created to prosecute the Russian leadership, as well as its allies in Belarus, North Korea and Iran, for crimes defined as aggression under international law and treaties that violate the sovereignty of another country and are not initiated in self-defense.
The decision is expected to be announced on Monday in an email to staff and members of the group’s parent organization, the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, better known as Eurojust, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
The United States has been 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 did not provide any reason for the withdrawal from the investigation team, other than the same explanation as for other personnel and policy changes: the need to reallocate resources.
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An American U-turn
The decision to withdraw from the International Center for the Prosecution of Crimes of Aggression Against Ukraine, which the Biden administration joined in 2023, is the latest evidence of the Trump administration’s departure from President Biden’s commitment to hold Putin personally accountable for crimes committed against Ukrainians.
The Trump administration is also scaling back the work of the Department’s War Crimes Prosecution Team, created in 2022 by then-Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and staffed by experienced prosecutors. It was designed to coordinate the Justice Department’s efforts to hold accountable Russians responsible for atrocities committed after the full-scale invasion three years ago.
“There is no place to hide for war criminals,”
– Garland said at the time, announcing the creation of the unit. Presumably now they will be able to hide, for example, in the United States.
Under the Biden administration, the team, known as WarCAT, has focused on an important support role: providing overburdened Ukrainian prosecutors and law enforcement with logistical assistance, training, and direct support in bringing war crimes charges against Russians to Ukrainian courts.
The team did handle one significant case. In December 2023, for the first time in almost three decades since the war crimes law was passed, U.S. prosecutors indicted four Russian military personnel in absentia for torturing an American living in Ukraine’s Kherson region.
Today, Trump’s position is close to Putin’s. In particular, he believes that Ukraine itself is to blame for provoking Russia’s military invasion.
“You should never have started this. You could have made a deal,”
– Trump said in February, addressing Ukraine’s leadership.
Trump’s position on Ukraine
During the election campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly said that he would stop the war in Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office. This deadline has already passed. After that, Trump’s entourage talked about 100 days within which he wanted to reach some kind of agreement. Of these, 56 days have already passed. During this time, the US presidential administration has established contact with the Kremlin, and American envoys have flown to Moscow several times and met with Russians in other countries. A meeting between Ukraine and the United States also took place.
During the election, the media spread the so-called “Trump Plan”. The idea was that the United States would use its influence to stop the war and maintain the status quo. To do this, Trump would force Putin and Zelenskyy to sit down at the negotiating table. If Putin does not agree to negotiate, the United States will give Ukraine all the weapons it needs to win on the battlefield. If Zelenskyy refuses to negotiate, the United States will completely stop helping Ukraine.
This plan, in its various variations, included a provision that Russia would retain the territories it temporarily occupied and that Ukraine would not join NATO.
However, later Trump seemed to “forget” about this plan. In particular, he voiced scenarios in which he would force Russia to capitulate due to the decline in world oil prices.
After Trump was elected President of the United States, one of his advisors, Brian Lanza, said that Ukraine should forget about Crimea. Trump’s entourage, however, was quick to deny this statement and said that Lanza could not speak for him.
Meanwhile, in exchange for military support, Trump demanded $500 billion worth of rare earth metals from Ukraine. He said that the US should have access to Ukraine’s natural resources, regardless of whether Kyiv manages to reach a peace deal with Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy emphasizes that in exchange for this agreement, the Ukrainian side is not given any security guarantees.
