Trump administration pulls US out of body investigating Ukraine invasion
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, Russiaās 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 Bidenās 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 centreās investigation, along with prosecutors from Ukraine, Poland, the Baltic states, Romania and the international criminal court.
āThe 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,ā Garland said at the time.
On Monday, the New York Times cited an internal letter from the groupās parent organisation, the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust).
āThe US authorities have informed me that they will conclude their involvement in the ICPA,ā Michael Schmid, Eurojustās president wrote.
He said the centreās work would continue without US participation, with the group āfully committedā to holding accountable āthose responsible for core international crimesā.
The decision follows weeks of tension between Donald Trump and Ukraineās 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 āa dictator without electionā, falsely accused him of provoking the invasion and said Putin wanted to end the war ā 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 āthere is no hiding place for war criminalsā and vowed that the department would āpursue every avenue of accountability for those who commit war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraineā.
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.
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