Today, Friday, the judges of the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, on grounds of war crimes in Ukraine, as well as an arrest warrant against the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in Russia, Maria Lvova Belova.
The court statement said that Putin and the Commissioner for the Rights of the Child may be involved in war crimes, namely the illegal deportation of the “children” population and the illegal transfer of the population from Ukrainian territory to Russia.
The court added that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Putin bears personal criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes, because he committed these acts directly, jointly with others, and because he did not have adequate control over the military subordinates who committed or permitted the commission of the acts.
In turn, the Russian Foreign Ministry on Friday described the decisions of the International Criminal Court as useless and legally void, after announcing the issuance of an arrest warrant against Putin on charges of war crimes.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the decisions of the International Criminal Court are of no importance to Russia, and that Moscow is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and has no obligations under it.
Maria Zakharova stated that the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court are legally invalid for Russia, and that Moscow will not cooperate with the court.
For his part, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba welcomed the International Criminal Court’s issuance of Putin’s arrest warrant today, saying that “the wheel of justice has begun to turn.”
The Rome Statute is the founding text of the International Criminal Court, which has its headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands.
