- The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin for an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia.
- ICC accused Russian President Putin of responsibility for war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine during the war that has been ongoing for over a year.
- Russia has not commented on ICC’s move. Russia denies committing atrocities since it invaded Ukraine in February last year. Russia denies deliberately harming civilians.
- The Kremlin has considered the ICC’s actions as “outrageous and unacceptable. “We consider the very posing of the question outrageous and unacceptable. Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of this court.
- Russia signed the Rome statute, which governs the ICC, in 2000 but never ratified the agreement to become a member.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the ICC for its “historic” decision.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian official Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova for alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia, reported CNN. ICC accused Russian President Putin of responsibility for war crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine during the war that has been ongoing for over a year.
The world court said in a statement Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of the children and that of unlawful transfer of children. It also issued a warrant for the arrest of the commissioner for children’s rights in the office of the president of the Russian Federation on similar allegations, reported another media outlet.
So far, Russia has not commented on ICC’s move. Russia denies committing atrocities since it invaded Ukraine in February last year. Russia denies deliberately harming civilians but its defence ministry has claimed to have targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
The warrants came a day after a United Nations-backed inquiry accused Russia of committing wide-ranging war crimes in Ukraine, including the forced deportations of children in areas it controls, the media reported. However, the successful extradition of President Putin could prove a far greater challenge as Russia does not recognise the jurisdiction of the international criminal court in The Hague, reported DW News.
The ICC charges are the first to be formally lodged against officials in Moscow since it began its unprovoked attack on Ukraine last year. The Kremlin has considered the ICC’s actions as “outrageous and unacceptable. “We consider the very posing of the question outrageous and unacceptable. Russia, like a number of states, does not recognize the jurisdiction of this court and, accordingly, any decisions of this kind are null and void for the Russian Federation from the point of view of law,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov tweeted.
Russia signed the Rome statute, which governs the ICC, in 2000 but never ratified the agreement to become a member. It formally withheld its signature from the founding statute of the ICC in 2016, a day after the court published a report classifying the Russian annexation of Crimea as an occupation. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Kremlin has severed ties with several prominent international organisations, deepening the country’s isolation from the west. In March last year, Russia was expelled from the Council of Europe, the continent’s leading human rights watchdog, over its attack on Ukraine. Moscow is also pulling out of the International Space Station after 2024 and has threatened to withdraw from the World Trade Organisation and the World Health Organisation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the ICC for its “historic” decision, saying in his nightly address on Friday that Ukraine’s investigations also suggest the Kremlin had direct involvement in the forced deportation of children into Russia.
“In the criminal proceedings being investigated by our law enforcement officers, more than 16,000 forced deportations of Ukrainian children by the occupier have already been recorded. But the real, full number of deportees may be much higher,” he said. “Such a criminal operation would have been impossible without the order of the highest leader of the terrorist state.”
