United States to withdraw from the group that investigates the responsibility of the invasion of Ukraine

The Department of Justice has silently informed the European officials that the United States withdraws from a multinational group created to investigate the leaders responsible for the invasion of Ukraine, including President Vladimir V. Putin de Russia, according to people familiar with the situation.

The decision to withdraw from the International Center for the Raging of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, which was joined by the Biden Administration in 2023It is the last indication of the Trump administration’s departure from the commitment of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to hold Mr. Putin responsible for the crimes committed against the Ukrainians.

The group was created to hold Russia’s leadership, along with its allies in Belarus, North Korea and Iran, for a category of crimes, defined as aggression According to international law and treaties that violate the sovereignty of another country and do not begin in self -defense.

The decision is expected, the familiar people with the situation, on Monday to be announced on an email to the staff and membership of the group’s parent organization, the European Union agency for the cooperation of criminal justice, better known as Eurojust.

The United States was the only country outside Europe to cooperate with the group, sending a senior prosecutor of the Department of Justice to The Hague to work with researchers from Ukraine, Baltic States and Romania.

A department spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comments on Sunday night.

The Trump administration is also reducing the work done by the department. War crimes responsibility teamCreated in 2022 by the Attorney General at that time, Merrick B. Garland, and attended by experienced prosecutors. He intended to coordinate the efforts of the Department of Justice to hold Russians who are responsible for the atrocities committed after the complete invasion three years ago.

“There is no hiding place for war criminals,” Garland said when announcing the organization of the unit.

The department, he added, “will continue each way of responsibility for those who commit war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine.”

During the Biden administration, the team, known as Warcat, focused on a Important support role: Provide prosecutors and police officers overloaded with Logistics, training and direct assistance to present charges of war crimes committed by the Russians to the Courts of Ukraine.

The team brought a significant case. In December 2023, American prosecutors used a war crimes statute for the first time since it was promulgated almost three decades ago to accuse four Russian soldiers In absence with torture an American who lived in the Kherson region of Ukraine.

In recent comments, President Trump has approached Mr. Putin while facing the president of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, reaching Falsely suggest that Ukraine played a role in causing the brutal and illegal military incursion of Russia.

“You should never have started it,” Mr. Trump He said in Februaryreferring to the leaders of Ukraine. “You could have made a deal.” He continued in a publication in social networksCalling Mr. Zelensky a “dictator without elections” and saying that he had “done a terrible job” in office.

The Trump administration did not give any reason to withdraw from the research group other than the same explanation for other personnel and policy movements: the need to re -deploy resources, according to people familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss movements publicly.