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Sputnik/Pool via Reuters Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow February 16.
Reuters
7:22 JST, March 18, 2023
AMSTERDAM/KYIV, March 17 (Reuters) – The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, alleging Moscow’s forcible deportation of Ukrainian children is a war crime, as the Kremlin reacted with outrage.
Russia has not concealed a program under which it has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia but presents it as a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and children abandoned in the conflict zone.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the move would lead to “historic accountability,” adding that the deportations constituted a policy of “state evil which starts precisely with the top official of this state.”
The announcement provoked a furious response from Moscow. 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. Russia, like the United States and China, is not a member of the ICC.
“Yankees, hands off Putin!” wrote parliament Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, a close ally of the president, on Telegram.
“We regard any attacks on the president of the Russian Federation as aggression against our country,” he said.
The United States said there was “no doubt” Russia was committing war crimes in Ukraine. The court also issued a warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, on the same charges.
Putin, only the third serving president to have been issued an arrest warrant by the ICC, is unlikely to end up in court any time soon. But the warrant means that he could be arrested and sent to The Hague if he travels to any ICC member states.
“This makes Putin a pariah. If he travels he risks arrest. This never goes away. Russia cannot gain relief from sanctions without compliance with the warrants,” said Stephen Rapp, former U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes.
Residents of the Russian capital expressed disbelief at the news. “Putin! Nobody will arrest him,” a man who gave his name only as Daniil, 20, told Reuters.
Maxim said, “We will protect him – the people of Russia.”
