The United States is reportedly withdrawing from the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, an international coalition formed to investigate those responsible for the invasion of Ukraine, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to reports from The New York Times, the decision was reached in recent days by the Trump administration and will be formally communicated via email to group members and Eurojust, the overseeing European agency. No official reason was provided for the withdrawal, aside from a general comment citing the need to reallocate resources.
The center’s mission is to prosecute Russian leaders and their allies in Belarus, North Korea, and Iran for crimes of aggression under international law. The U.S. — which joined the initiative in 2023 during the Biden administration — was the only non-European country involved. It had sent a senior Justice Department official to The Hague to collaborate with investigators from Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Romania.
In tandem with the withdrawal, the Trump administration is also scaling back the War Crimes Accountability Team, established in 2022 by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland. The team was designed to coordinate Justice Department efforts to pursue Russian perpetrators of atrocities committed after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Under the Biden administration, the team provided logistical support, training, and direct assistance to Ukrainian prosecutors and law enforcement working to bring Russian war criminals to justice in Ukrainian courts.
