NYT: The US to leave International Center for Investigation of Crimes of Aggression against Ukraine

The United States will leave the International Center for the Investigation of Crimes of Aggression against Ukraine. It has already secretly informed the European countries that are part of this investigative group about this.

This is reported by The New York Times, citing sources.

Staff and members of the groupʼs parent organization, the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, better known as Eurojust, are expected to receive the relevant emails on Monday, March 17.

The publication notes that such a decision is evidence that the Donald Trump administration is moving away from former President Joe Bidenʼs commitments to hold Putin personally accountable for crimes committed against Ukrainians.

The US did not explain the reasons why the country is withdrawing from the investigative group, other than that the new American administration is reallocating resources, sources told NYT.

In addition, the Trump administration is also reducing the work of the War Crimes Analysis Group, which was created in 2022 at the initiative of then-Attorney General Merrick Brian Garland. This group was supposed to coordinate the Justice Departmentʼs efforts to hold Russians accountable.

• The International Center for the Investigation of Crimes of Aggression against Ukraine opened in July 2023 in The Hague. It is gathering evidence to indict Kremlin officials, a step toward the creation of a special tribunal. The group was created to hold the leadership of Russia and its allies in Belarus, North Korea, and Iran accountable for crimes of aggression. This means they violated the sovereignty of another country by starting a war without the right to self-defense, which is prohibited by international laws and treaties.
• The team included the US special prosecutor for the crime of aggression throughout. The United States was the only country outside Europe to cooperate with the team, sending a senior Justice Department prosecutor to The Hague to work with investigators from Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Romania.

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