Arrest Warrant Out For Putin
March 17, 2023
The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged war crimes involving accusations that Russia has forcibly taken Ukrainian children.
The ICC also issued a warrant for Putin's commissioner for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.
The court said in a news release Friday the two are "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."
The move by the criminal court at the Hague marked a significant step, requesting the arrest of a sitting world leader — even as analysts acknowledged the chances of arresting President Putin are slim.
Indeed, in Moscow, officials were quick to note Russia has never signed on as a party to the ICC as they dismissed the charges outright.
"The very question itself is outrageous and unacceptable," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "Russia, like a number of other states, does not recognize the jurisdiction of this court, and therefore any of its decisions are insignificant for the Russian Federation from a legal viewpoint."
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin called the court's decision "historic."
Like the United States, Ukraine is also not a party to the ICC. But Kostin noted that the Ukrainian government has cooperated with the court on criminal investigations in its territory. He said his office handed more than 1,000 pages of documents over to the ICC regarding the alleged forcible deportation of children to Russia.
A report released last month by Yale University researchers and the U.S. State Department accused the Russian government of operating a systematic network of custody centers for thousands of Ukrainian children.
Russian officials have not denied the arrival of Ukrainian children in the country, but have characterized the centers for children as part of a large humanitarian program for abandoned, war-traumatized orphans.
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