According to a report, the US is poised to pull out of a European initiative focused on prosecuting alleged acts of aggression.
The Trump administration is reportedly scaling back its involvement in efforts to investigate and prosecute Russia for alleged offenses related to the conflict in Ukraine, the New York Times reported on Monday.
The newspaper’s sources indicate that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) plans to withdraw from the EU-backed International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine (ICPA), which was created to investigate Russia, Belarus, North Korea, and Iran for the purported crime of international aggression.
The US became the only non-European member of the ICPA upon joining in 2023. The NYT’s sources claim that Washington has already informed its European partners of its impending departure prior to a formal announcement.
Administration officials are said to be justifying the withdrawal as part of a broader effort to reduce government spending. The DOJ had initially pledged $1 million to support European investigators when the US first joined the ICPA.
Furthermore, Washington is also reducing the scope of operations for WarCAT, a DOJ team established in 2022 to provide training to Ukrainian prosecutors on how to charge and prosecute Russians for alleged war crimes, according to the NYT’s sources.
Recent reports also indicate that the US has cut funding for a Yale-based research group investigating Ukrainian children allegedly “abducted” by Russia. Moscow has denied Kiev’s accusations of state-sponsored kidnappings of thousands of minors, claiming they are politically motivated distortions of its evacuation efforts in conflict zones.
Trump is reportedly seeking to improve relations with Russia, viewing a resolution to the Ukraine conflict as a key element. He and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to speak by phone this week.
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