Not a sentence

The United States left the international group investigating Putin and other responsible for the invasion of Ukraine. What does it affect?

The US withdrawal from the International Center for Personal Crimes against Ukraine (ICPA) was not accompanied by either high -profile statements by the administration of Donald Trump, or posts on social networks, which have long become almost official elements of political communication. The first decision about this decision was reported on Monday morning of the New York Times, referring to the unscrewed sources. During the day, this information was confirmed by an official letter from Europe. We figure out what these are the ICPA organization, and what are the causes and consequences of Washington.

Nuremberg 2.0

The International Center for Personal Crimes Crimes against Ukraine was created in July 2023 as an integral part of the so -called Euro -Journal - the EU special agency for cooperation in the field of criminal justice. The organization is located in the Hague. The specifics of this center in many respects allows us to talk about its uniqueness and unprecedentedness. At least it was until recently.

First. The emergence of the center was the result of the initiative and efforts of Kiev, with the support of the European Union, to establish a special tribunal, by the type of well -known Nuremberg or Tokyo, for the court and punishment of war criminals guilty of unleashing the war against Ukraine. It was meant that the highest military and political leadership of the Russian Federation, including Putin, can be held accountable as the perpetrators of the war. And the ICPA institution was just regarded as the first promising step towards such an international tribunal, because the main function of this structure was collecting and analyzing the evidence base of crimes not only of Russia, but also to its allies (DPRK, Iran, Belarus), to use it in the future a possible trial against them. The center does not have the authority to make charges and put the warrants for arrest. He collects evidence in a single base, coordinates information between different countries and develops a prosecutor’s strategy, according to which the connection of the revealed crimes with specific persons standing behind them should be proved, that is, with people who make decisions.

Second. The uniqueness of the Center is that for the first time since 1945 it has prepared documentary evidence for the future investigation precisely on the fact of aggression of one state against another, that is, the use of armed force against its sovereignty, integrity and independence. This approach is more complex than the investigation of the International Criminal Court (MUS). The fact is that the jurisdiction of the latter does not cover the crime of aggression, since Russia is not a member of the Mus. In 2017, a rule was adopted according to which the investigation of aggression can only be begun if both parties have membership in the International Criminal Court. Therefore, in the case of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the latter works according to situations related to genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, but not aggression as a whole as such. It was the International Criminal Court in March 2024 who issued the arrest warrant of Putin and the Russian children's ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova on suspicion of deportation of children from Ukraine. Although this had a symbolic effect, even then the implementation of this decision seemed unlikely, and now, when, in fact, the Kremlin’s international isolation of the Kremlin is broken, it has generally turned into an illusion.

The ICPA task is to prove not only a specific episode, namely a crime of one country against another, to confirm that aggression is the result of the systemic administrative-luxury decisions of the Russian Federation.

Such crimes are the most “elitist”, according to Anton Korinievich, an ambassador on special instructions of the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine and an agent of Ukraine in the UN International Court. They are responsible for those who make key decisions, that is, the highest leadership of the country of the aggressor. In addition, these crimes are the most systemic ; In the Ukrainian case, this is all that Russia does in Ukraine, including the most famous terrible cases: the siege and destruction of Mariupol, the explosion of the Kakhovskaya GRES, torture in prisons, the shelling of Okhmatdet, as well as the bombardment, blocks of ports, attacks on land, in the sky and at sea. Therefore, the accusation of a crime of aggression is also systemic and includes all these episodes: war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity.

Third. For the first time in the history of the collection of the evidence base of aggression crimes began during aggression, and not after the end of the war. However, this very circumstance significantly reduces the prospects for bringing these charges to the court, as well as the court itself as such. At least at the moment.

The process of proof of international crimes is very complicated and long -term, a large role is played by a scrupulous data collection. “After all, people who have witnessed crimes and possibly preserved arguments and evidence in their phones, as well as various evidence that the crime of aggression has occurred, is now not only in Ukraine, but scattered throughout Europe, sometimes around the world,” says Alexander Romantsova, executive director of the Civil Freedom Center. It is also necessary to reliable preservation of information obtained during a digital investigation, metadata, geodata, so that there is no doubt about its authenticity.

The political speeches of Russian leaders, their public statements, GPS maps, 3D scans, intercepted conversations and correspondence, information about the movement of military and operations in various countries are studied as evidence. Moreover, evidence of the fact of aggression has been determined not from 2022, but from 2014.

In addition, the Center cooperates between national prosecutors, the exchange of data, including intelligence information, the development of a general criminal prosecution strategy, in order to conduct a court on the basis of collected evidence and punish precisely for the preparation, planning and conduct of war. The specific implementation of the tasks of the Center is carried out by an international investigative group, which initially consisted of representatives of Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania.

In 2023 (shortly after the creation), the United States officially joined the work of the Center, becoming the only non -European country in this institution, and in November of the same year, the Biden administration provided $ 1 million to support the organization’s activities. In addition, back in 2022, the US prosecutor Merrick Garland created a prosecutor’s group that coordinated the efforts of the American Ministry of Justice to prosecute Russians, whose participation in war crimes was proved.

Despite the difficulties in identifying and collecting evidence, most of which are located in the Russian Federation, over 2,000 files to the Euro -Juquer database for basic international crimes were provided for the year of work of the investigative group of 14 countries.

On the anniversary of the creation of the Center, in July 2024, EUROSIST President Ladislav Hamran said : “ICPA has firmly established itself as a foundation for the development of a network of comprehensive responsibility. The fight against impunity should be in the center of our attention, and it is very important that it covers one of the foundations of the modern international order based on the ban on the use of force. The Eurojust undertakes to support the ICPA as long as it is necessary. ”

But then Trump came.

Not a prosecutor, but an intermediary

The reasons for the exit from the process to collect evidence of aggression, as well as reducing the work of the prosecutor’s group, were not officially named. According to the New York Times, the officialexplanation is the optimization of resources, which, in principle, fits into the general policy of liquidation of public services, organizations and media. Moreover, the liquidations are very biased.

So in this case, one cannot fail to notice not so much economic as the political background of this decision. Trump has long clearly made it clear that from the status of an ally of Ukraine he goes into the status of an intermediary, equidistant from the conflicting parties. Of course, this status does not yet look completely neutral, given the resumption of weapons supply to Ukraine. However, they are carried out in accordance with the decisions of the previous administration, as well as the transfer of information from American satellites to Kyiv. Trump did not provide anything new to Ukraine than and intends to earn Putin's trust.

The refusal to participate in the international investigative group is another proof of such a desire. And it was expected. Already stories with resolutions of the UN General Assembly showed that the United States, in fact, officially does not officially consider the Russian Federation as an aggressor. And it is no coincidence that the way out of the organization occurred on the eve of a telephone conversation with Putin, to reinforce, so to speak, trusting relations. The fact that the intermediary should try to create at least the appearance of such relations and on the other side, Trump, obviously, does not care at all.

Perhaps in the decision to eliminate the organization’s work, there is a certain share (although, of course, far from deciding) the “anti -Biden” track.

Everything that is done by the previous administration is incredibly annoying Trump. By the way, on the same Monday, the new American president canceled decrees on the pardon signed by his predecessor.

Will the aggressor be punished?

The US exit from the ICPA, of course, determines a number of difficulties for organizing and the efficiency of collecting and analyzing evidence of aggression. The International Center loses the help of experienced prosecutors and intelligence, which only Americans own, and, finally, the share of financial support that the United States provided.

However, the loss of political, so to speak, of intangible assets. Director of the Center for Research of Military Crimes at the Institute of State and Law named after the Koretsky National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine Nikolai Syrych believes that “criminal prosecution can be effective only when it is involved in sufficiently strong and influential countries. They guarantee that war criminals will be held accountable. That is, if the United States refuses to participate in this investigation, this means that they refuse to be guarantors for the future. This is very unpleasant information for all democratic countries and the United States of America and their people. ”

The Verkhovna Rada deputy Alexander Merezhko, on the contrary, is sure that there is no reason for panic, and by his decision Trump realizes his peace plan, in which the American president sees himself as an “honest broker”. “Again, in order to be a shuttle diplomat, you need to have confidence on both sides, and therefore the Americans come out of those structures that are directed against Russia in the eyes of Putin. That is, it is such a purely diplomatic and political step, ” says the people's deputy. “But this does not mean that the Americans support Russia.” This should not surprise us. Trump's task, which he puts in front of himself is to put an end to the war as soon as possible. ”

A more balanced position is occupied by a political scientist, the head of the board of the Public Initiatives of the Right, Olga Aivazovskaya, evaluating this whole story as "a great tragedy for world order, but not as the end of the world." It recalls that "the United States has never been a great supporter of the International Criminal Court, and their active work was exclusively part of a political decision, and not a strategic task." Aivazovskaya calls on to focus on transferring the process of preparing the international tribunal into the framework of the Council of Europe, and this work itself began before the American decision. She sees much more risk in the fact that within the framework of the negotiation process, pressure will be put on Ukraine in order to remove the punishment of criminals from the agenda. In this case, “Ukrainian victims will almost lose the opportunity to obtain the legal right to the truth, compensation and payment in the period and following the results of the result of the process that will affect everything.”

In general, in the context of the turbulence that the Trump administration demonstrates in all directions, the completion of this head of American cooperation with Ukraine looks logical. In this situation, Kyiv can only hope that those evidence of aggression that have already been collected or will be collected in the future will someday become an argument to restore justice.