The Noose Tightens for Vladimir Putin with a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression

The Washington Post has a clear and concise opinion (firewall) piece by Vladimir Kara-Murza on the complexities of the decision on July 1 of the Council of Europe to set up a Special Tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, directed at Russia's president, Vladimir Putin.

The Special Tribunal was necessary because there is no existing institution that has the authority to try a head of state for aggression.

It's a long road, but as Kara-Murza writes, with the establishment of the Special Tribunal, "Justice is Coming for Vladimir Putin."

Vladimir Kara-Murza is an opinion writer for The Washington Post.  He is a Russian citizen, a politician, author, and historian. He is a critic of Putin and was imprisoned in Russia from 2022 to 2024.  In 2024, he won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Vladimir Kara-Murza

Justice is coming for Vladimir Putin

A new tribunal targets the act that made all subsequent Russian war crimes in Ukraine possible.

STRASBOURG, FRANCE — It is not often that one gets a front-seat view on history as I (literally) did last week, sitting in the visitors’ gallery at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and listening to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as he addressed European lawmakers on the establishment of the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine. The agreement setting up the new court was signed minutes earlier by Zelensky and Alain Berset, secretary general of the Council of Europe, on behalf of its 46 member states.

“Justice must work in a way that makes it clear to anyone planning such crimes, crimes of aggression, that accountability is certain,” Zelensky told parliamentarians in a late-night address. “And it will take strong political and legal cooperation to make sure every Russian war criminal faces justice — including Putin.” This last line was met with long and raucous applause in the chamber.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine in February 2022, which triggered the largest military conflict on European soil since the Second World War, revealed a significant gap in international justice. While war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the war in Ukraine fall under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (which has already issued an arrest warrant for Putin over the abduction of Ukrainian children), and countless individual abuses are being reviewed by the European Court of Human Rights, no judicial institution is currently authorized to prosecute the crime of aggression itself — a crime the Nuremberg Tribunal once described as “the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

It is this legal gap that the special tribunal is designed to fill. Likely to be located in The Hague, the court’s membership will be open to countries beyond the Council of Europe. The tribunal’s 15 judges as well as the prosecutor and deputy prosecutors will be elected by member states. The sole crime over which the tribunal is authorized to indict, prosecute and convict is the crime of aggression, defined as the decision by one state to use armed force against another in violation of the U.N. Charter. This is, by definition, a “leadership crime”: While war crimes can be committed by any individuals regardless of rank, only those in positions of power can decide to start a war — and in the case of Russia’s personalistic dictatorship, this specifically means Putin.

And this is what the main point of contention among the tribunal’s founding states is likely to be. While Council of Europe officials are pointing to judicial immunity for sitting heads of state as an obstacle to indicting Putin as long as he remains in the Kremlin, this claim is at best dubious. With two resolutions adopted in 2023 and 2024, the Council of Europe’s own Parliamentary Assembly has recognized Putin’s presidency past May 7, 2024 as “illegitimate” because his personal waiver from term limits violated both Russian and international legal norms. The European Parliament has reached the same conclusion. Clearly, a usurper has no right to the protections afforded to legitimate leaders.

But, regardless of how the question of immunity is decided at this stage, the creation of the special tribunal is of monumental importance for the future — not only of Ukraine and of Europe as a whole, but also of Russia itself.

As I have argued many times, the main reason for the failure of Russia’s democratic transition in the 1990s — a failure that led us to where we are today, including the war in Ukraine — was the lack of accountability for crimes committed by the Soviet regime, both against its own people and against other countries. Vladimir Bukovsky, a prominent author and dissident, spent many months in 1991 and 1992 trying to convince the Russian government to organize a public Nuremberg-style trial for former leaders of the Communist Party and the KGB. In his landmark legal opinion issued in November 1992, Russian Constitutional Court Judge Anatoly Kononov argued for holding the former regime responsible under the relevant international statutes, including those relating to “genocide, war crimes, and crimes against peace and humanity.” But these calls went unheeded: Russia’s democratic leaders were unwilling to “rake up the past” and dismissed the idea of trials as a “witch-hunt.” “In that case the witches will return and start hunting us,” Bukovsky warned Kremlin officials at the time — and turned out to be exactly right.

There will be another window of opportunity for political change in Russia — and this time, it must not be squandered. Achieving real accountability for crimes committed by Putin’s regime is essential if a post-Putin Russia is to become a functioning democracy and rejoin the international community. After the fall of Slobodan Milosevic’s regime in 2000, the West made his handover to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague a priority for the normalization of relations. Serbia’s new democratic government delivered the former dictator there in June 2001. It took eight years from the establishment of the International Tribunal in 1993 to Milosevic’s first appearance in the dock.

I hope that Putin makes this journey far quicker.

Russia's Economy Declines Putting Pressure on Its Ability to Conduct Its War on Ukraine

 

Photo Credit

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) in its Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment for June 20, 2025, highlights Russia's economic vulnerability due to its war against Ukraine.  A prolonged war--Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been over three years now (or eleven years if you count from its original invasion in 2014 when Russia seized Crimea--is fought and won on resources.  Due to a slowing economy, Russia is running out of resources and time, and ISW assesses that things are economically worse than Russia admits.  There is a point in which Russia's frailties will catch up with Russian policy makers.

Look for Russia's 2025 second quarter (thru end-June) and its third quarter (thru end-September) economic reporting for further evidence of a decline in economic performance and where the economic fault lines will appear.

If economic decline is pronounced by end year, Russia may not be able to sustain the budgetary cost of its war on Ukraine.  Then Ukraine will have the opportunity to turn the momentum of the war in its favor.

The following on Russia's economy is excerpted below from ISW's full assessment.

"The Kremlin continues to prioritize maintaining the facade of economic stability by pursuing economic policies that will likely exacerbate Russia's economic instability. Putin claimed during SPIEF on June 20 that Russia's debt is not growing and refuted claims that Russia's economy is declining. Putin claimed that the idea that Russia's economy is only tied to raw materials and is dependent on hydrocarbon exports is "outdated," but that Russia aims to increase its non-oil and gas exports. Putin claimed that inflation in Russia decreased to 9.6 percent as of June 16 and that he expects inflation to fall to seven percent by the end of 2025. Putin used his speech to focus on reductions in the poverty level in Russia. Putin also highlighted Russia's low unemployment rate, claiming that the rate has stabilized around 2.3 percent since October 2024. Putin did not speak about Russia's labor shortages that are causing this low employment rate, however, in contrast to his 2024 SPIEF speech in which he acknowledged that Russia was suffering from labor shortages and highlighted the need for skilled migrant labor to increase Russia's economic growth. Putin may be attempting to gloss over his ongoing efforts to leverage migrants to mitigate ongoing labor shortages amid increasing anti-migrant sentiments in Russia.

The Kremlin has repeatedly attempted to posture the Russian economy as strong and stable, claiming in recent months that inflation was between nine and 10 percent when the actual figure was likely closer to 20 percent. Putin's June 20 claim that Russian inflation is 9.6 percent is likely also false. ISW has observed reports that domestic consumers in Russia continue to face rising prices for staple food items, such as potatoes and butter. Putin also failed to acknowledge the growing detrimental effects of high interest rates of 20 percent on the Russian industrial sector. Russian steel company Severstal head, Alexander Shevelev, warned on June 19 that metallurgical production facilities are at risk of shutting down due to low consumer demand and high interest rates. Russian Central Bank Chairperson Elvira Nabiullina notably stated at SPIEF on June 19 that Russia's economy grew at a high rate for two years because Russia was using "free resources," including Russia’s workforce, production capacity, import substitution, the liquid assets of the National Welfare Fund, and the banking system’s capital reserve, but that Russia has exhausted many of these resources and needs to think of a new growth model. ISW previously assessed in early June 2025 that the Russian government was likely pressuring Nabiullina to lower Russia’s key interest rate to reduce the impact of high interest rates on the Russian budget and civilian industries.

Putin's efforts to frame the Russian economy as stable and growing are part of his efforts to balance social support programs with Russia's military needs and maintain his support among the Russian population despite the growing economic costs of his war in Ukraine. ISW continues to assess that Kremlin efforts to pressure the Central Bank into prematurely lowering the key interest rate to maintain the facade of economic stability may backfire and contribute to elevated levels of inflation.

Putin is attempting to obfuscate the reality that increased investment in Russia's defense industrial base (DIB) has come at the cost of Russia's civilian economic sectors. Putin stated during his speech at SPIEF that Russia's gross domestic product (GDP) has increased by over four percent annually over the last two years, but claimed that Russia's GDP growth is not solely due to Russia's oil and gas or defense industrial sectors. Putin claimed that Russia's agricultural, construction, logistics, financial, and information technology (IT) sectors have also expanded over the last two years. ISW reported in September 2024 that Russia's 2025 federal budget allocated 13.5 trillion rubles ($145 billion) toward "National Defense" expenditures and another 3.5 trillion rubles ($37 billion) toward "National Security," meaning that Russia committed about 41 percent of its 2025 expenditures to defense and security expenses. Russia allocated 6.4 trillion rubles ($69 billion) to its 2025 "Social Policy" budget in comparison, which underscores the disparity between Russia's investment in its defense industrial sectors compared to its civilian sectors.

Putin highlighted Russia's DIB growth during his speech and called for further integration of civilian and defense industrial sectors in order to facilitate greater innovation and increase dual-use goods production. Putin claimed that Russia's DIB has increased its output "many times over" and is "mastering" new equipment and weapons. Putin called for Russia to move away from dividing companies between the defense industrial and civilian sectors of the economy and to quickly implement innovations from the civilian sector into Russia's defense and security. Putin called for Russia to decrease the time between formulating an idea and its implementation and called for Russian military commanders and heads of defense industrial enterprises to be more involved in production decision-making processes. Putin pointed to drones, which Putin called the most effective means to destroy expensive military equipment, as an area where Russia can increase efficiency to ensure Russia's security and solve problems in Russia's DIB. Putin framed Russia's investments in artificial intelligence (AI) as purely focused on economic development and civilian sectors during his speech at SPIEF, although Russia is already working to integrate greater AI and machine learning (ML) capabilities into drones along the frontline. Russia undertook a concerted campaign to centralize Russian drone units and drone production efforts in late 2024, but Putin appears to be acknowledging that Russia's new drone production and testing mechanisms must retain a rapid innovation cycle."

 (ISW is a non-partisan, non-profit, public policy research organization in Washington, DC.)

For a similar, though less pessimistic, analysis of Russia's economy, see the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA.org), Russia's Economy: Losing Altitude, Not Control.

Trump's Post About His June 4 Call With Putin is Russian Weird.

Photo Credit: giphy.com

Dylan Combellick, who posts about Ukraine on Medium.com, makes an intriguing point about Trump's post on Truth Social about his June 4 phone call with Putin.

Combellick's observation about Trump's post is worth repeating in full below.  He observes that an English speaker does not seem to have written Trump's post.

The use of language and punctuation, at least for the portion of the post dealing with Ukraine, does not reflect a person who is a native speaker of English.  In fact, it reflects the composition of a Russian speaker.

So, who wrote Trump's post?

"Weird Language

So, this post bothered me. I poked fun at it in an earlier article, but thinking further, it kept reminding me of Twitter user TexasPatriot0946362 mentioning “warm water ports.”

For background, “warm-water ports” are things that ONLY Russians talk about—Russians and penguins from Heard Island. Anyone who talks about them is a Russian bot or troll. Almost all American ports are “warm-water ports,” like virtually every European port. No country except Russia has its access to the sea shut off for months during winter.

So when Trump says “docked.” That’s not how Americans talk, right? Docked airplanes? Well, Russia does. In Russian, airplanes are often referred to as судно (sood-nuh), which can, without context, mean either an airplane or a seagoing ship. Only the military uses that word to refer to aircraft. It’s probably a carryover from when we called them airships. The “docked” comes from a Google Translate of the Russian word пришвартованный (or any number of conjugations). I would translate it as “docked” when used without context, as that is the general civilian understanding of the word. Only the Russian military uses that word when referring to airplanes. Read that sentence again. It is not used by civilians when talking about aircraft, ever.

Then, look at the commas. Those aren’t Trump commas. They aren’t English commas. They aren’t even Shatner or Walken commas. Those are where the commas would be placed by a crappy computerized translator that was sourcing material from a language that has a lot of commas, like Russian.

Peace is capitalized. The Russian word мир (meer) has a double meaning: “world” and “peace.” The Russian Meer, or Русский Мир (capitalized), is the Russian vision of peace in which Russia is the king of everything, so there will be no more war, only oppression.

All of that is very weird."

Buymeacoffee

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U.S. Census Bureau Index of Economic Activity Release June 2, 2025--Trade Weights on US Economic Outlook

The US Census Bureau released on June 2 its economic indicators thru April 2025,

The long view is that nothing seems to change much over time, with the exception of the financial crisis in 2008/2009 and the negative effect of COVID in 2020 (with a strong bounce back in 2021/22 at the beginning of President Biden's term).

But looking at the short term, a lot is happening.  The overall index fell nearly 1% (-0.91%)

But the real story is why it fell.  Generally, economic activity was weak.  For instance, Advanced Wholesale Inventories, Advanced Retail Inventories, and Construction Spending were 0.0%, -0.1%, and -0.4% from March to April, respectively.

But Advanced International Trade: Goods fell a whopping -46.0%, while Advanced New Orders: Durable Goods (not shown on chart) fell -6.3%. 

With economic activity weak overall, clearly, the decline in trade-related economic activities will have a pronounced effect going forward.  Look for economic activity in later months to fall even more.

For a closer look at the numbers, go to,

https://www.census.gov/economic-indicators/

IMF: Global Debt is Higher and Rising Faster in 80% [59 countries] of Global Economy

 

Chart Credit: IMF.org

"Global public debt is very high and rising. According to the WEO reference projection in 2025, it will rise above 95 percent of GDP. It is higher and growing faster than pre‑pandemic. It will be approaching 100 percent of GDP by the end of the decade, surpassing the pandemic peak, but global numbers hide a wide diversity across countries. In the figure, every bubble represents a country. The larger the bubble, the larger the country's GDP. The figure shows debt levels on the vertical axis and debt growth on the horizontal axis compared to pre‑pandemic. The higher the bubble in the figure, the more debt has increased compared to 2019."

IMF Report on Global Debt

Press Briefing

Clarity on Support for Ukraine

 

photos: X.com @CaolanRob

Last night (May 24), Russia launched against several cities in Ukraine, including Kyiv, 14 ballistic missiles and 250 Shahed drones.  Ukraine shot down 6 missiles and 245 drones. The remaining missiles and drones did extensive damage and caused numerous injuries.  President Zelenskyy posted that "Rescue and emergency operations are ongoing at the sites of strikes and debris impacts — wherever they are needed. There were many fires and explosions in the city overnight. Once again, residential buildings..."

Where we stand in Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

 

Shankar Narayan, who frequently writes about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, has an insightful article at Medium.com on the meaning of Monday's call between Trump and Putin.

Narayan writes, "Putin likely walked into that call with a clear plan: smile, nod, and say a firm no.  If Ukraine won't surrender, then he's not handing Trump anything to brag about on social media.  And it looks like he executed that strategy to perfection."

As a consequence, "Trump didn't announce a ceasefire after the call.  Instead, he announced that the United States would step back from mediation entirely--and watch the war from the sidelines."

In other words, despite Trump's bluster about his good relationship with Putin and being able to end the war in 24 hours, he failed yet again.  Ukraine will have to fight on.  

 A fundamental flaw in Trump's approach, Narayan points out, is, "To expect the MAGA movement to understand the value of democracy is like expecting a dictator to understand the value of truth.  It won't happen."

To read Narayan's article, go to Medium.com at Trump Tried to End the War.  Putin Humiliated Him Instead.