The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant against President Vladimir Putin of Russia over the unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.
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Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and since then thousands have been killed and property worth billions destroyed.
On Friday, the ICC said the warrant became necessary following the applications submitted by the prosecution on February 22, 2023.
The court said Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the crimes committed in Ukrainian territory from February 24, 2022.
Responding, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, wrote on her Telegram channel: “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 bears no obligations under it.”
Senior Ukrainian officials applauded the ICC decision, with the country’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin hailing it as “historic for Ukraine and the entire international law system”.
Putin is only the third serving president to have been issued an ICC arrest warrant, after Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.
While it is unlikely that Putin will end up in court any time soon, the warrant means that he could be arrested and sent to The Hague if travelling to any ICC member states.
The ICC issued the warrant on suspicion of the unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of people from the territory of Ukraine to the Russian Federation. The court also issued a warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, on the same charges.
Russia has not concealed a programme under which it has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to the country but presents it as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and children abandoned in the conflict zone.
In the first reaction to the news from Moscow, Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said “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 bears no obligations under it.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia found the very questions raised by the ICC “outrageous and unacceptable”, and that any decisions of the court were “null and void” with respect to Russia.
Senior Ukrainian officials applauded the ICC decision, with the country’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin hailing it as “historic for Ukraine and the entire international law system”.
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