Any move to “wipe the slate clean” for Russia in a peace deal would be “a historic mistake of huge proportions,” the EU justice commissioner tells POLITICO.
Donald Trump’s drive to secure peace in Ukraine must not let Vladimir Putin off the hook for war crimes committed by Russian forces, a top EU official has warned, effectively setting a new red line for a deal.
In an interview with POLITICO, Michael McGrath, the European commissioner for justice and democracy, said negotiators must ensure the push for a ceasefire does not result in Russia escaping prosecution.
His comments reflect concerns widely held in European capitals that the original American blueprint for a deal included the promise of a “full amnesty for actions committed during the war,” alongside plans to reintegrate Russia into the world economy.
I DECLARE PARDON!
Yeah it doesn’t work that way Donnie. The Hague isn’t in the states last time I checked.
Unfortunately, it does work that way when you’re the nuclear superpower of the world with a sociopath at the helm
Why wouldn’t it work that way when the world has warped itself to suit his whims in almost every other circumstance? Who’s going to stop him?
Russian money told me otherwise - Trump
Basically Trumps whole philosophy is “If you have money you’re above the law”. It’s what Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, etc are banking on while supporting him.
There’s a lot less russian money than there used to be.
Yes but bribing trump is surprisingly cheap compared to the economic benefit that will get
Like the $1 mil dinner that would allowed Nvidia to make billions selling the GPUs to China (if China didn’t forbid anyone to buy those cards)
Or the tacky gold Rolex bribe that lowered tariffs to Swiss from 40 to 15%
Or that gold ingot from Tim Apple.
And so on
Well…maybe. You’re not seeing everything that goes through his meme coin.
Nah, too complicated, and the pseudonymous traces are left forever in the Blockchain for public analysis.
The law allows unlimited donations to the presidential library, can directly send a bank transfer to that.
A corporation donating $200 mil to the presidential library (probably it can be even tax deducted) isn’t as shady buying the same amount of a meme coin
You can’t pardon Putin for war crimes in Ukraine… idiot.
Well, this is about a potential peace deal which would grant Putin immunity in Ukraine for any war crimes committed there, which theoretically Ukraine would sign. It’s not about Trump using a presidential pardon.
The EU needs to issue arrest warrants for Trump and his entire Administration!
They won’t do shit about Netanyahu, you think they will do anything about Trump.
https://www.rte.ie/news/us/2025/0311/1501359-trump-martin-us/
Didn’t Trump visit his hotel to talk to EU leaders few months ago?
https://time.com/7305721/trump-tries-to-woo-skeptical-europe/
EU is as spineless as it comes when it comes to geopolitics involving US. They’ll make some virtue signalling speech and then right after kiss US boots in the backroom and bark if they did a good job from daddy Trump.
And when the first U S. Official is arrested the Netherlands gets invaded by the US and we fully kick off WW3.
So you sanction those people so they can’t get so much as a side of fries at Euro Disney if they step out of the US. It’s not justice but it’s something.
“And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”
- The Guy Who Thinks He Can Do Anything
Trump is as stereotypical American as you can get.
Ignorant, dishonest, self centered, and only interested in money.
Kind of the perfect representative for USA.
Many Americans think American law equals international law, so in this Trump is probably pretty average.Every New Yorker hates Trump’s guts, and historically and publicly have since the 1980s. You are absolutely correct to criticize our current government, but the rest of this just feels like frustrated lashing out
As a foreigner this is easy to observe, as an American it may not be so obvious.
But USA is clearly extreme on American exceptionalism.The past few years (decade) it has gone down a bit, because the non Republicans are beginning to see it.
New Yorker can hate Trump as much as they want, many of them they still share some of those fundamental traits.Oh now I understand, you actually have no clue what you’re even talking about
The US is 55+ states and dozens of Indian nations all stuck together under one flag. There isn’t a stereotypical person from the States any more than there is a stereotypical European. Putting aside that ‘American’ covers North, South, and Central America.
Fuck you, Trump.
We’ve seen what a Trump peace deal really means, with Israel and Gaza
The surrender deal that the hypocritical europe supported then Trump offer a similar surrender plan to Ukraine and now they complain about it
Just recently, I joked that Trump might try to pardon Netenyahu. Looks like I was right in thinking that he thinks he can pardon people in other countries.
Also, Trump can’t pardon anyone outside of the United States for anything.
But… but America is the king of the world, isn’t it?
I wish it was true, but the reality seems to disagree. Trump very much can pardon Putin and anyone else, and will do so if he wants to. The EU may cry, but it will do nothing about it. I’m not one bit happy about this, but that’s just how it is.
Currently, EU leaders consist of the following types of politicians:
- American assets,
- lunatic nationalists who happen to side with the US for a variety of reasons,
- more or less reasonable (for politician standards), but still afraid to confront the US in any way.
Any time Washington wants something, they get it from us. Any time they tell Europe to bend over, it does so, lubricant in hand. Want us to completely illegally seize a Chinese company’s Dutch branch, leading to no benefits and severe sanctions from China? Done, daddy.
It’s a sad state of affairs, but current EU is not prepared to stand up for itself. A combination of US and Russian interference, as well as braindead far-right nationalists have made sure we’re powerless and unable to act on anything significant.
Empires simply cannot tolerate the existence of a place like the EU. It shows their citizens that they don’t have to be slaves and that not every single minute of life has to suck. Which in turn might cause them to protest, and we can’t have that. How many times have you heard the “employment in the USA vs employment in France” memes? Well, the American Empire has found a reliable solution to this issue. Just destroy France, along with all of Europe, and American slaves will stop complaining about shitty work conditions compared to France!
- American assets,
- lunatic nationalists who happen to side with the US for a variety of reasons,
- more or less reasonable (for politician standards), but still afraid to confront the US in any way.
Category #3 is just as afraid of the lunatic nationalists as defying American interests. This is, from my perspective, why Europe has traditionally had some issues with ultranationalism.
Not before he pays his fee you can’t, that would just be foolish
Too late. Putin already pair for it. He’s now got to render the service, like he did many times before.
It’s the art of the deal.
While I like the sentiment, unless the EU is interested in a WWII style total war and invasion of Russia, Putin is never going to be held to account for the invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian government (Read: Putin and his cronies) are not going to agree to hand Putin over to The Hague. Even if the current war ends on favorable terms for Ukraine, that is never going to look anything like the German or Japanese surrenders. At best, this war ends with Russian military exhaustion and withdrawal. More like the end of Soviet involvement in Afghanistan. There will be no push to Moscow, no mass bombing of Russian factories or cities. Just Russian soldiers packing up and going home, leaving death and devastation behind for the survivors of their invasion to deal with.
Any negotiated peace is going to look pretty similar. It will stop the death sooner at the cost of giving Russia something it’s willing to accept. That’s the way negotiations work. If you want to force the other side to accept your terms, without any compromise, that’s what war is for. Since it seems neither the EU nor the US are willing to engage in a direct confrontation with Russia, then the only choice to end this war early is compromise. And Putin facing accountability is almost certainly not going to be on the table.
There is another option, which is Putin is couped out of office. The new Russian government wants to get rid of Putin and sending him to the Hague would mean he is locked up for life and all the problems Russia has can be blamed on him. It also creates some good will with the Ukrainians for peace negotiations. The Wagner revolt shows that this is certainly possible.
While that is possible, I’d seriously doubt it happening. Wagner’s run at Moscow seemed like the best opportunity for that to happen, but it just stalled out. I’m still surprised Prighozin, stopped his push short of Moscow. I was not surprised afterwards when an airplane he was on suffered “technical difficulties”. But, between the failure of Wagner to remove Putin and them now being rolled into the Russian military, I think Putin has done a lot to consolidate his control over the armed forces, exactly to prevent that outcome.
Ya, it could happen, I don’t believe it’s likely.
There is no expectation that Putin will ever stand trial for his crimes. That’s not the point. The point is that he should not be allowed to have those crimes swept under the rug. Putin should be a global pariah, like Netanyahu; a man who has to fear setting foot outside his own country because of the very real danger that he could be arrested.
Just because we can’t punish him, doesn’t mean we have to forgive him.
