A senior European official has cautioned President Trump that Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine must not be ignored as the U.S. pushes for a cease‑fire.
Michael McGrath, the European commissioner for justice and democracy, warned that history will condemn any attempt to let Russia escape accountability for its actions on Ukrainian soil.
“ I don’t think history will judge kindly any effort to wipe the slate clean for Russian crimes in Ukraine, ” McGrath told Politico. “They must be held accountable for those crimes, and that will be the approach of the European Union in all of these discussions.”
McGrath added that conceding to impunity would “sow the seeds of the next round of aggression and the next invasion,” calling it a “historic mistake of huge proportions.”
The original 28‑point peace package that Trump’s team floated—which included a clause granting Moscow “full amnesty for actions committed during” its assault on Ukraine—has since been heavily revised. A newer U.S.‑Ukraine version contains only 19 points, and officials met again in Miami last Sunday to tweak the plan further.
Under the initial draft, a U.S.‑Russia economic partnership would have followed a victory, with joint projects in energy, infrastructure, AI, data centers, and Arctic rare‑earth extraction, the plan detailed.
The Kremlin’s alleged war crimes have been catalogued in staggering detail. Ukraine’s investigators have opened cases on more than 178,000 accusations, and international bodies have acknowledged the same. A UN commission last month ruled that Russia’s drone strikes on Ukrainian civilian homes constituted “war crimes.” In 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin on charges of unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine.
“ We cannot give up on the rights of the victims of Russian aggression and Russian crimes, ” McGrath said, noting that “millions of lives have been taken or destroyed, and people forcibly removed, and we have ample evidence.” The European partners fear that Trump’s team may be ready to overlook these atrocities in the name of ending the conflict.
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