As the Trump administration works to help broker peace between Russia and Ukraine, European officials have emphasized that any resolution must include accountability for Russian actions, warning that failing to do so could have dire consequences.
According to Fox News, European Commissioner Michael McGrath, responsible for Democracy, Justice, the Rule of Law, and Consumer Protection, stressed that allowing Russia to avoid consequences for its conduct in Ukraine would be a grave error.
“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.”
McGrath warned that overlooking Russia’s actions could set the stage for further aggression.
“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,” he said. “And I believe that that would be a historic mistake of huge proportions.”
He also highlighted the human cost of the conflict.
“We cannot give up on the rights of the victims of Russian aggression and Russian crimes,” McGrath said. “Millions of lives have been taken or destroyed, and people forcibly removed, and we have ample evidence.”
The comments come as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed appreciation for the Trump administration’s efforts to mediate the conflict.
“I am grateful to the United States, to President Trump’s team, and to the President personally for the time that is being invested so intensively in defining the steps to end the war,” Zelenskyy wrote in part of a post on X.
With both the EU and Ukraine emphasizing the importance of accountability, any potential peace negotiations brokered by the Trump administration are expected to face scrutiny over how they address responsibility for Russia’s actions in the ongoing conflict.
