US leaves a Russophobic “nest”

Photo: AFP

U.S. to withdraw from so-called “group investigating responsibility for Ukraine invasion”, ‘The New York Times’ reports.

The Justice Department has quietly informed European officials that the United States is withdrawing from a multinational group created to investigate leaders responsible for “the invasion of Ukraine.”

The decision to withdraw from the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, which the Biden administration joined in 2023, is the latest indication of the Trump administration’s move away from President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s commitment to holding Mr. Putin personally accountable.

The group was created to hold the leadership of Russia, along with its allies in Belarus, North Korea and Iran, accountable for a “category of crimes — defined as aggression under international law and treaties that violates another country’s sovereignty and is not initiated in self-defense.”

The United States was the only country outside 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.

During the Biden administration, the team, known as WarCAT, focused on an important supporting role: providing Ukraine’s overburdened prosecutors and law enforcement with logistical help, training and direct assistance.

In recent comments, President Trump has moved closer to Mr. Putin while clashing with Zelensky — going so far as to falsely suggest that Ukraine played a role in provoking Russia’s brutal and illegal military incursion.

“You should have never started it,” Mr. Trump said in February, referring to Ukraine’s leaders. “You could have made a deal.” He followed up in a post on social media, calling Mr. Zelensky a “Dictator without Elections” and saying he had “done a terrible job” in office.

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