President Joe Biden has quietly ordered the US government to begin sharing evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine with the International Criminal Court in The Hague, according to officials familiar with the matter, signaling a major shift in American policy.
The decision, made by Biden in recent days, overrides months of resistance by the Pentagon, which argued that it could pave the way for the court to prosecute American troops, according to the officials.
It was unclear why Biden let the impasse linger or what finally led him to resolve it, but he has been under mounting bipartisan pressure to act. Last week, for example, a Senate committee approved a government funding bill that had a provision stating that the president “shall provide information” to the court to assist with its investigations into war crimes in Ukraine.
US intelligence agencies are said to have gathered information including details about decisions by Russian officials to deliberately strike civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and forcibly deport thousands of Ukrainian children from occupied territory. Already, they have shared some of that evidence with Ukrainian prosecutors but had refrained from doing so with The Hague.
Since the International Criminal Court was created by a 1998 treaty to investigate war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, administrations of both parties have viewed it with wariness and sometimes hostility. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 has helped thaw those relations.
The White House has yet to announce the policy reversal or the assistance it will now provide, but it began notifying members of Congress on Tuesday, according to the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.
The Pentagon press office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Adrienne Watson, a National Security Council spokesperson, expressed a broader commitment to holding Russia to account for atrocities but declined to address the International Criminal Court issue.
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