Under the pretext of "reassessing priorities," the United States is quietly abandoning initiatives aimed at prosecuting Russian crimes. According to The Washington Post, the Trump administration is shutting down or defunding key programs—from seizing oligarch assets to documenting war crimes and the forced deportation of Ukrainian children. The position of war crimes coordinator within the intelligence community remains vacant. Cooperation with The Hague has been suspended following arrest warrants for Israeli leaders. After the freezing of the Conflict Observatory program, which tracked the removal of children from occupied territories, the message from Washington became clear: justice is no longer a strategic priority.
The administration of Donald Trump is demonstrating a consistent retreat from the United States’ former role as a global arbiter and guarantor of international law. Under the pretext of "reassessing priorities," the White House is dismantling programs aimed at holding Russia accountable for crimes committed in Ukraine—thereby effectively weakening the architecture of international justice.
According to The Washington Post, the administration withdrew from a European initiative created to respond to Russian aggression, curtailed the powers of the U.S. Justice Department’s war crimes team, and shut down a program for confiscating the assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs.
Particularly telling is the abandonment of a law that provided for the creation of a war crimes coordinator position within the U.S. intelligence structure. This role was intended to ensure the collection and coordination of intelligence on crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine. It was established in December 2022 through the initiative of two members of Congress—Democrat Jason Crow and Republican Michael Waltz, who now serves as Trump’s national security advisor. However, under the new administration, the position remains vacant, and the task force created to support it has been disbanded.
"If the administration is truly committed to peace, it cannot ignore the need for justice," Crow told The Washington Post. Instead, he said, the White House is showing a willingness to 'let Putin off the hook.'
The consequences of this retreat are felt far beyond bureaucratic offices. Last year, the Conflict Observatory—a U.S.-funded program that documented the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia—was suspended. The program had been preparing to transfer vast amounts of satellite imagery and biometric data to European investigative bodies, but was instead shut down. Only a wave of criticism from evangelical groups and some Republicans temporarily revived its operations.
The White House also disbanded the FBI’s foreign interference task force and ended support for international efforts to prosecute aggression against Ukraine. Funding was cut for prosecutors in The Hague who had been collecting evidence of Russian war crimes. The U.S. withdrew from the international body established to coordinate such investigations.
"This feels like a collapse of the entire support system for Ukraine—from the battlefield to international courts," said Beth Van Schaack, who led the State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice until January. According to her, the abandonment of the war crimes coordinator role has led to a loss of direction: "Without it—no one is steering the ship."
The transfer of data to the International Criminal Court was halted after the court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. This coincided with a new phase of the war in Gaza, prompting Washington to pause cooperation out of fear that such precedent could be used against the U.S. itself.
Against this backdrop, it becomes clear: the Trump administration is willing to sacrifice the principle of justice for short-term political gain. If, in past decades, America positioned itself as the architect of international order, it is now increasingly refusing even to be a participant.
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