The U.S. State Department will provide $1 million to support the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine (ICPA), spokesperson Matthew Miller announced on Nov. 14.
The ICPA will collect evidence in the first step to the creation of a special tribunal on Russian aggression as a whole, as the ICC only has the mandate to investigate individual cases of war crimes.
The center was launched in July 2023 at the office of Eurojust, the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation, in The Hague.
The ICPA was established with the support of the European Commission and is made up of prosecutors from Ukraine, the EU, the U.S., and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
"As Russia continues to blatantly violate international law," the U.S. "remains focused on working with Ukraine and the international community to hold accountable those responsible for international crimes committed in Ukraine," Miller said.
The ICPA will provide a platform for the sharing of evidence and allow Ukraine and partner countries "to collaborate in building the strongest possible cases for future prosecution."
The ICC opened a field office in Kyiv in September to "increase the effectiveness and efficiency of responding to the crimes that Russia continues to commit against Ukraine and Ukrainians every day," Ukraine's Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin said.
"We are doing our utmost to ensure that the ICC experts can see the aftermath of the aggressor's crimes with their own eyes and draw their independent conclusions," Kostin said.
Anastasiia Malenko
(Updated: )
