With potential Ukraine peace negotiations on the horizon, international accountability for Russia’s actions faces increasing uncertainty, according to Fredrik Wesslau, distinguished policy fellow at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies.
In an opinion piece for Politico published on 18 March, Wesslau warns that a “bad peace deal for Ukraine” appears increasingly likely, making accountability for Russian war crimes “a more distant prospect than at any time since Russia’s full-throttle invasion of Ukraine.”
The Trump administration has demonstrated willingness to negotiate peace “largely on Russia’s terms.” This approach has already manifested in the US withdrawal from the International Center for the Prosecution of the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, which investigates leadership responsibility for the invasion.
“The current US administration is hostile to international justice,” Wesslau writes, citing sanctions imposed against the International Criminal Court for investigations into Israeli officials – sanctions that now hamper the court’s ability to investigate war crimes in Ukraine.
Wesslau cautions that Trump might accept an amnesty clause for Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin officials involved in the war. Such a move would align with Trump’s worldview that “might makes right” and his “strongman admiration of Putin,” according to the opinion piece.
An amnesty for serious international crimes would violate international law, Wesslau notes, while empowering other autocrats to “seize others’ territory without consequences.”
EU action required right now
Wesslau urges the European Union to act immediately, before peace negotiations begin, to “lock in and protect accountability efforts in Ukraine.” The centerpiece of this strategy should be establishing the proposed Special International Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression.
“Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is the original crime that paved the way for all other international crimes committed in Ukraine,” Wesslau writes in Politico. Unlike war crimes and genocide, no international tribunal currently exists that can prosecute aggression, necessitating an ad hoc tribunal.
Nearly 40 countries have been working with Ukraine since 2023 to establish this tribunal, and Wesslau notes they are “now close to agreeing on how it would operate.” If a peace deal includes amnesty provisions, establishing the tribunal afterward would become politically challenging.
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- Zelenskyy approves Ukrainian delegation for peace negotiations
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