Pentagon Blocks Sharing Evidence From Ukraine

The Pentagon is blocking the Biden administration from sharing with the International Criminal Court in The Hague evidence gathered by U.S. intelligence agencies about Russian atrocities in Ukraine, according to current and former officials briefed on the matter. U.S. military leaders oppose such help because they fear setting a precedent that might help pave the way for the court to prosecute Americans. The rest of the administration favors giving the evidence to the court, the officials said. President Biden has yet to resolve the impasse, they added. The evidence is said to include details relevant to an investigation that the chief prosecutor of the court, Karim Khan, began after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The information reportedly includes material about decisions by Russian officials to deliberately target civilian infrastructure and to abduct thousands of Ukrainian children from occupied territory. The I.C.C. was created two decades ago as a standing venue to investigate war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity under a 1998 treaty called the Rome Statute. Many democracies joined the court, but the U.S. has long kept its distance