The Washington Post reported that federal prosecutors are working on laying the groundwork to prosecute Russians involved in war crimes in Ukraine.

She stated that State Department officials believe that indicting Russian President Vladimir Putin may prompt some Russian officials to reconsider their role in the war.

The Washington Post indicated that the United States may assist foreign investigators with intelligence to document Russian abuses in Ukraine.

According to the newspaper, while it is unlikely that Putin will end up in the International Criminal Court in The Hague, an indictment against the latter or his aides would mark a historic moment in efforts to hold senior officials accountable for the atrocities committed under their rule.

"It would be a huge development in this area, going back to the Nuremberg era in World War II," said Beth Van Schack, US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice.

She likened the impact of the trial to that of the arrest in 1998 of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet on the order of a Spanish judge.


Cities like Bucha, where the departure of Russian troops revealed a horrific scene of human suffering, including booby-trapped corpses, have become synonymous with Russian brutality since the invasion began two months ago.

Van Schaak, who previously worked with courts established to try crimes in Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, headed the State Department's team to oversee efforts to document Russia's actions and assess whether they meet the criteria for crimes against humanity and genocide.

The newspaper reported that the Biden administration also supports the efforts of Ukraine's Prosecutor General, Irina Venediktova, to investigate Russian actions in the war.

On Friday, the prosecutor accused Russia of planning to torture, rape and kill civilians.

Clint Williamson, a lawyer who served as Van Shack from 2006 to 2009 - now - is working on a joint US initiative with the European Union to support Ukrainian efforts to prosecute possible war crimes, and the lawyer said that Venediktova's office is making progress.

As part of that effort, the United States is advising Ukrainian officials on how to prepare a war crimes case, manage field evidence, and conduct interviews with prisoners of war, the Post reported.