Top EU official warns President Trump not to let Vladimir Putin off the hook for war crimes

A top European official has warned President Trump against letting Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine slide during the push for peace.

Michael McGrath, the European commissioner for justice and democracy, argued that history will render a harsh verdict on any effort to help Russia evade prosecution for its crimes in Ukraine.

“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.

“Were we to do so, to allow for impunity for those crimes, we would be sowing the seeds of the next round of aggression and the next invasion,” McGrath continued. “And I believe that that would be a historic mistake of huge proportions.”

The leaked, initial 28-point peace plan that Trump’s team floated to end the war included a provision to give Moscow “full amnesty for actions committed during” its onslaught against Ukraine.

That plan would’ve also rewarded the Kremlin economically if it ends the war in Ukraine, by fostering economic cooperation between the US and Russia.

“The United States will enter into a long-term economic cooperation agreement for mutual development in the areas of energy, natural resources, infrastructure, artificial intelligence, data centers, rare earth metal extraction projects in the Arctic, and other mutually beneficial corporate opportunities,” the 28-point plan said.

That blueprint has since undergone significant modifications. Late last month, the US and Ukraine came to a 19-point plan. Then, US and Ukrainian envoys convened in Miami for another round of talks Sunday to make even more changes to the blueprint.

Trump’s team has seemingly toyed with the idea of easing up on Russia, both in terms of sanctions and amnesty for war crimes, as part of an effort to get the Kremlin on board with a peace deal.

Throughout the war, Russia has committed many atrocities, including allegations of abducting roughly 20,000 Ukrainian children and forcing some of them to fight against their home country.

Russia has also carried out brutal attacks, slaughtering children in Bucha, Mariupol, and elsewhere.

European allies appear concerned that Trump’s team will be willing to turn a blind eye to all of that in order to end the bloodshed.

Ukraine has opened up probes into over 178,000 alleged Russian crimes since the war broke out nearly four years ago. International groups have also concluded that Russia carries out war crimes against Ukraine.

A United Nations commission determined last month that Russia’s targeting of Ukrainian civilian residences via drone attacks were war crimes.

The International Criminal Court put out an arrest warrant for Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin in 2023 for the “war crime of unlawful deportation of population [children]” out of Ukraine.

“We cannot give up on the rights of the victims of Russian aggression and Russian crimes,” McGrath contended to the outlet. “Millions of lives have been taken or destroyed, and people forcibly removed, and we have ample evidence.”