The Trump administration fired a coordinator responsible for collecting data on war crimes committed by Russia during its full-scale war against Ukraine, the Washington Post (WP) reported on April 22, citing its undisclosed sources.
The news comes as the U.S. is trying to get Russia and Ukraine to sign a deal to end the all-out war while steadily scaling down its support of Kyiv.
The White House also disbanded the Justice Department's War Crimes Accountability Team, headed by a coordinator, and dismantled a program to seize assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs, the WP reported.
The Russian war crimes coordinator position was created in accordance with a law co-authored by then-Congressman Mike Waltz, the current national security advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump.
Democratic Congressman Jason Crow, another co-author, told the Washington Post that if Trump and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard "want to achieve lasting peace, they must be willing to hold (Russian President Vladimir) Putin accountable for the crimes he's committed in Ukraine."
In mid-March, Washington exited from the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine (ICPA).
The ICPA, which the U.S. joined in 2023, was established to collect evidence for the special tribunal for Russia that aims to bring the Russian government to justice for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, as well as to strip Putin and his associates of their immunity.
Asami Terajima
(Updated: )
