The Justice Department notified European authorities that the US has withdrawn from a multinational group created to investigate leaders responsible for Ukrainian invasions, including Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, according to a letter sent to members of the organization on Monday.
The 2023 decision to withdraw from the prosecutor's centre for offensive crimes against Ukraine, which was joined by the Biden administration, is the latest indication of the Trump administration's move from President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s commitment to personally liability for crimes against Ukrainians.
The group was created to hold Russian leaders along with allies from Belarus, North Korea and Iran. This is responsible for a category of crime defined as attacks under international law and treaties that violate the sovereignty of other countries and are not initiated in self-defense.
“U.S. authorities have informed me that I will conclude my involvement with the ICPA,” by the end of March, the European Union's Judicial Cooperation Agency, known as Michael Schmidt, the group's parent organization president, Eurojust, wrote in an internal letter obtained by The New York Times.
The group has “full committed” to describe Ukraine's “international crime leader,” he added.
The United States was the only country to send senior prosecutors to the Hague to work with investigators from Ukraine, the Baltic Sea, Poland, Romania and the International Criminal Court.
A department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Sunday night.
The Trump administration is also reducing the work done by the department's war crimes accountability team created in 2022 by then-attorney general Merrick B. Garland and created by experienced prosecutors. It was intended to coordinate the Department of Justice's efforts to hold Russians accountable for the atrocities that took place in the aftermath of a complete invasion three years ago.
“There is no hiding place for war criminals,” Garland said by announcing the unit's organization.
The department added that “will pursue every path of accountability for those who committed war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine.”
During the Biden administration, the team known as Warcat has focused on key support roles. Provide logistics assistance to Ukrainian prosecutors and law enforcement agencies, as well as training and direct assistance in submitting alleged war crimes committed by Russians to Ukrainian courts.
The team has brought one important case. In December 2023, US prosecutors accused the first time they used the war crimes law since it was enacted nearly 30 years ago, and torture Americans living in the Herson area of Ukraine in the absence of four Russian soldiers.
In recent comments, President Trump approached Putin while clashing with Ukrainian President Voldimee Zelensky. It falsely suggests that Ukraine played a role in inducing Russia's brutal and illegal military invasions.
“You'd never have started it,” Trump mentioned the Ukrainian leader in February. “You could have made a deal,” he followed up on a social media post, calling Zelensky a “no-election dictator,” and saying he “did a terrible job.”
The Trump administration gave no reason to withdraw from research groups other than the same explanation of other personnel and policy moves. The need to redeploy resources, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to publicly discuss the movement.
