The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, citing his alleged involvement in the abduction of Ukrainian children.
A warrant was also issued Friday for Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, after the ICC declared there are “reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect bears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, in prejudice of Ukrainian children.”
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR: INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT LAUNCHES ‘LARGEST EVER’ PROBE INTO WAR CRIMES
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures as he gives his annual state of the nation address in Moscow on Feb. 21, 2023. (Sergei Karpukhin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
The U.S. is not a member of the ICC and neither assists nor acknowledges the authority of the judicial body.
The ICC wrote that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
WHAT’S THE ICC THAT ISSUED PUTIN’S ARREST WARRANT AND WHAT CONSEQUENCES DOES HE FACE?
Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Maria Zakharova brushed off the arrest warrant, saying, “The decisions of the International Criminal Court have no meaning for our country, including from a legal point of view.”
“Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and does not bear obligations under it,” Zakharova said. “Russia does not cooperate with this body, and possible ‘recipes’ for arrest coming from the International Court of Justice will be legally null and void for us.”
A view of the exterior view of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong, File)
Ukraine’s General Prosecutor Andriy Kostin cheered the decision.
“Now, if Putin leaves Russia, he would be arrested and surrendered to ICC,” Kostin said. “World leaders will think twice before shaking his hand or sitting with Putin at the negotiating table. It’s another clear signal to the world that the Russian regime is criminal.”
While the court was established as an international judicial body with the signing of the Rome Treaty of 1998, the ICC began actual operations in 2002 based in The Hague,…
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