The Trump administration disbanded a key position coordinating intelligence on Russian atrocities in Ukraine, the Washington Post reported on 23 April.
This move is part of a broader effort to roll back initiatives holding Russia accountable for alleged war crimes.
According to the Post, the administration vacated a coordinator position at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence that was mandated by law to gather intelligence on Russian atrocities in Ukraine.
“The atrocities coordinator position is… tasked with holding Putin responsible for the crimes he’s committed against the Ukrainian people,” said Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colorado) in a statement to the Post. “This position was created by Congress on a bipartisan basis, and the administration must empower whoever serves in this position to carry out their duties as required by law.”
The position was created through legislation co-written by Crow and former congressman Michael Waltz, who now serves as Trump’s national security adviser.
The Post reported that an interagency working group led by that coordinator has also been dismantled, according to three current and former officials.
The administration took several other steps to roll back accountability mechanisms. It has moved to withdraw from an international group led by the European Union created to punish Moscow for violating international law. The Justice Department’s War Crimes Accountability Team has seen its work reduced, and a program to seize assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs has been dismantled.
“It’s a very disturbing retreat from the US commitment to holding accountable the perpetrators of war crimes and aggression, particularly in the bloodiest conflict that Europe has seen since World War II,” Eli Rosenbaum, the former head of the Justice Department war crimes team who retired in January 2024, told the Post.
The administration also paused an effort to help Ukraine find children who were removed from their families and sent to Russia during the war. After criticism from Christian evangelical groups and some Republicans, the administration temporarily allowed the program to continue until data transfer is completed.
“If Trump and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard want to achieve lasting peace, they must be willing to hold Putin accountable for the crimes he’s committed in Ukraine. So far, this administration has shown they’re willing to let Putin off the hook,” Crow said.
Last month, the Trump administration paused and then restarted weapons and intelligence assistance to Ukraine after the Trump and Zelenskyy clash in the Oval Office. The White House has also asked the Treasury and State departments to draw up a list of sanctions against Russia that could be lifted as part of peace talks, according to Reuters.
President Trump said on 18 April that he was prepared to walk away from peace talks between Russia and Ukraine “very shortly” if he didn’t see “enthusiasm” from both sides.
Beth Van Schaack, who led the State Department’s Office of Global Criminal Justice until January, told the Post: “We had a whole machinery that was supporting Ukraine on multiple fronts — on the battlefield, in the international courts and on the humanitarian side. It feels like a real reversal now — an upside-down-world.”
The ODNI coordinator was “the backbone” of the accountability effort, synchronizing intelligence agencies to collect information on different aspects of Russian atrocities, said Van Schaack, now at Stanford University. “Without the coordinator, no one is navigating the ship,” she said.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office has documented over 128,000 victims of Russian war crimes as of the end of 2024, President Volodymyr Zelensky said at the United for Justice conference in Kyiv on 11 September.
According to multiple sources including Ukrainian authorities, the International Criminal Court (ICC), and human rights organizations, the documented and alleged war crimes by Russian forces number over 130,000 incidents.
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