The United States has informed Eurojust of its withdrawal from the monitoring group for Russian war crimes in Ukraine. This is reported by Sky News, writes UNN.
The US authorities have informed Eurojust that they will no longer continue their participation in the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine (ICPA). The ICPA, with the support of Eurojust, continues to work in support of national investigations of the crime of aggression related to the war in Ukraine,
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As UNN wrote earlier, the US is withdrawing from the multinational group that is investigating Russian crimes in Ukraine. This is a decision of the Trump administration, which is reallocating resources, despite the important role of the US in WarCAT.
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The United States was 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 is also curtailing the work of the war crimes accountability group established in 2022 by then-Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, which includes experienced prosecutors. It was designed to coordinate the Justice Department's efforts to hold Russians accountable for atrocities committed after the full-scale invasion three years ago.
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 assistance in bringing war crimes charges against Russians to Ukrainian courts.
In December 2023, the US Attorney's Office used the war crimes statute for the first time since its enactment nearly three decades ago to indict four Russian soldiers in absentia for torturing an American living in the Kherson region of Ukraine.
The Trump administration did not explain any reasons for leaving the investigation team, other than the same explanation for other personnel and political steps: the need to reallocate resources.