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European officials fear that Trump's flattery of Putin could get the Russian despot off the hook for his invasion as part of any peace settlement.
The US has signaled it may walk away from an international effort to prosecute Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.
According to Western officials, US envoys refused to label Russia an "aggressor" at a meeting of a "core group" of countries preparing a Nuremberg-style tribunal to try Vladimir Putin for his war crimes.
Washington is similarly refusing to co-sponsor a United Nations statement supporting Ukraine's territorial integrity and demanding that Moscow withdraw its forces from the war-torn country, The Telegraph writes.
The Trump administration has also refused to sign a planned G7 statement calling Russia "aggressive" in the war with Ukraine to mark the third anniversary of the conflict on Monday.
The US president has blamed Ukraine for starting the war, called Volodymyr Zelensky a "dictator" and pushed for Russia to be invited back into the alliance of industrialized nations.
European officials fear that Trump's flattery of Putin could get the Russian despot off the hook for his invasion as part of any peace settlement.
That stance has thrown into doubt preparations for the final meeting of the “core group” next month. The group is leading a 40-nation coalition to form a Special Court for the Crimes of Aggression against Ukraine, modeled on the response to Nazi war crimes after World War II.
This would include the US and other countries joining Ukraine in granting jurisdiction to a criminal court dedicated to investigating both the perpetrators of the crime of aggression and those who are accomplices in that crime.
The crime of aggression cannot be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
"If they don't acknowledge it's an aggression, they can't participate," one official said of U.S. opposition to labeling Russia as the aggressor.
Losing Washington's support for the court will be a major blow to the project's reputation and international standing.
“This is a pretty drastic change,” a European diplomat told The Telegraph. “Rewriting history and claiming that Russia was not the one who started this war is something we simply cannot and will not agree to.”
The US has not yet officially withdrawn from the scheme and is expected to attend its next meeting next month in Strasbourg, France.
A diplomatic note seen by The Telegraph revealed that European officials were "shocked" by US claims at a series of international meetings that Russia should be invited back into the "civilised world".
European capitals are now holding talks about a possible collapse of the special court if the US leaves as planned. The latest US position marks a significant shift in policy between Joe Biden and Mr Trump.
The former president had called Putin a "war criminal" and signed a series of international declarations describing Russia as an aggressor state.
Washington is now pushing to call the nearly three-year-old war the “Ukraine conflict” in discussions with international allies. A State Department readout of a meeting between Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, and Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, twice described the war as “the conflict in Ukraine.” /Adapted from The Telegraph Pamphlet/
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