Crime without punishment: How Trump wants peace at Ukraine's expense, and where this leads the world
President Donald Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize and to stop the fire in the war between Russia and Ukraine at any cost. This could change the rules of international order, where disputes will be resolved by the right of force, not the force of law, writes POLITICO.
But even if the White House chief succeeds, it does not mean that no one will be held accountable for war crimes committed by the Russian army on the orders of the Kremlin and the Russian military command.
Why justice is a prerequisite for lasting peace—here's the article summarized by LIGA.net.
Peace at the expense of the weaker
This week, U.S. officials met with Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Riyadh to push for a quick end to the war. Ukraine fears that in rushing toward a deal, Trump’s team will avoid holding Russia accountable for war crimes.
Kyiv is concerned about how Trump plans to end the war and whether, in his push to halt the fighting by Easter on April 20, he will disregard Ukraine's interests.
The U.S. has shifted from being Ukraine's ally to a neutral stance, even leaning toward Russia, accusing Kyiv of not doing enough to stop the war, the outlet reports.
"I believe Russia has managed to influence some people on the White House team through information. Their signal to the Americans was that the Ukrainians do not want to end the war, and something should be done to force them," says President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Washington has officially stopped calling the Russian invasion an act of aggression, withdrawn from the working group investigating war crimes, and cut funding for Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab, which had detailed the mass deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia.
The U.S. is urging Kyiv to prepare for territorial concessions to Moscow and is using its military aid and intelligence sharing as a means of pressuring Ukraine.
Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff, in an interview with pro-Russian propagandist Tucker Carlson, mostly repeated the Kremlin's talking points, stating that the U.S. is results-oriented and wants a deal that would satisfy the interests of Ukrainians and Russians.
Another reason for the rush is Trump's long-standing obsession with the Nobel Peace Prize.
"They would never give me a Nobel Peace Prize. I deserve it, but they would never give it to me," Trump said last month.
Wars and war crimes – Russia's long-standing tools
Despite Trump's pressure for the quickest possible end to the war, the head of the Center for Civil Liberties, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk, who has been documenting Russian war crimes in Ukraine for over ten years, believes that the cessation of hostilities will not ultimately stop efforts to achieve justice.
"I think [the U.S.] has a completely different goal, looking at this situation from a short-term perspective. At this stage, their task is to achieve peace, as they see it. And in this case, quite often justice and peace are mutually contradictory categories. Pursuit of justice prevents a quick settlement," she says.
Her center has documented over 81,000 war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine.
Moscow has waged an illegal war, bombed cities, killed civilians, kidnapped children, executed prisoners of war, tortured people in captured territories, deprived them of citizenship, and committed other crimes.
"Justice is a prerequisite for sustainable peace, especially when we are talking about Russia, which has been using wars as a method of achieving its political interests for decades, and for decades has been using war crimes as a method of winning those wars," says Matviichuk.
Three-quarters of Ukrainians agree that without justice, without the arrest and trial of those guilty of attacking Ukraine and committing war crimes, it is impossible to achieve peace, according to a Rating Group poll.
A world where the strong can do anything
The idea that powerful countries, like the U.S. and Russia, have more rights than others is part of Trump's worldview.
"If smaller countries do not accept the demands of larger powers and do not make a deal, then the smaller powers are actually to blame for inciting wars and resistance is a bad decision, because it brings death and destruction," a Ukrainian diplomat told POLITICO, requesting anonymity to be able to speak candidly, adding that that puts pressure on Ukraine to make more drastic concessions than Russia.
If Russia is allowed to escape justice, it will have an impact far beyond Ukraine, says Global Rights Compliance president Wayne Jordash.
"The long-term outcome of the ongoing ceasefire talks will not only determine Ukraine’s future as a sovereign nation but will also shape the future of international law and global order," he says, adding that other authoritarian leaders are watching closely.
"Either they will see that accountability for aggression and international crimes is a real thing and thus be deterred from such behavior, or they will conclude that law is only for the weak and can be ignored by those with power. In this latter case, we will return to a world where brute force has currency and where tyranny is allowed once again to triumph over the rule of law," says Jordash.
Long arm of the law
Even if the U.S. manages to push through an agreement on Ukraine without accountability for Russian crimes, those who committed crimes won't be able to relax, believes Matviichuk.
"War crimes have no statute of limitation. If today, due to some geopolitical reasons, we are unable to bring Putin, the top political leadership, and the military command to account … then tomorrow, when such an opportunity does arise, we will do it," she says.
She adds that international investigations into Russia's crimes continue. The ICC arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin remains in force.
The EU's unit for cooperation between prosecutors, Eurojust, confirmed that the International Centre for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine is operational, helping Kyiv investigate war crimes.
Since 2022, the Ukrainian prosecutor's office has registered more than 150,000 war crimes committed by the Russian army.
The Council of Europe has completed technical discussions on creating a special tribunal to investigate crimes against Ukraine.