Wanted: Vladimir Putin, for War Crimes

Vladimir Putin will remember this St. Patrick’s Day as the time his luck officially ran out, because the Russian strongman is now officially a wanted man — and not in a good way. The International Criminal Court said on Friday it issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Putin for war crimes because of his alleged involvement in abductions of Ukrainian childrenThe court said in a statement that Mr. Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of [children] and that of unlawful transfer of [children] from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”The ICC also issued a warrant Friday for the arrest of the commissioner for children’s rights in the office of the president of the Russian Federation, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, on similar allegations.The move was immediately dismissed by Moscow, while Ukraine welcomed it as a major breakthrough. Its practical implications, though, could well be negligible.Even if the court has indicted world leaders before, it was the first time it issued a warrant against one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.The court’s president, Piotr Hofmanski, said in a video statement that while the ICC’s judges have issued the warrants, it will be up to the international community to enforce them. The court has no police force of its own to enforce warrants.“The ICC is doing its part of work as a court of law,” he said. “The judges issued arrest warrants. The execution depends on international cooperation.”The chance of a trial of any Russians at the ICC is extremely unlikely, as Moscow does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction — a position it vehemently reaffirmed on Friday.The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, insisted that Russia doesn’t recognize the ICC and considers its decisions “legally void.” He added that Russia considers the court’s move “outrageous and unacceptable.”Mr. Peskov refused to comment when asked if Mr. Putin would avoid making trips to countries where he could be arrested on the ICC’s warrant.Ukrainian officials were jubilant. The foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said the “wheels of justice are turning,” and added that “international criminals will be held accountable for stealing children and other international crimes.”A Ukrainian mother who struggled for months to reclaim her foster children who were deported to an institution run by Russian loyalists, Olga Lopatkina, welcomed the news of the arrest warrant. “Good news,” she said in an exchange of messages with the Associated Press. “Everyone must be punished for their crimes.”Ukraine also is not a member of the international court but has granted jurisdiction, and an ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, has visited four times since opening an investigation a year ago.The ICC said its pre-trial chamber found “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.”The court statement said that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Putin bears individual criminal responsibility” for the child abductions “for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others [and] for his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts.”After his most recent trip to Ukraine, in early March, Mr. Khan said he visited a care home for children just over a mile from front lines in southern Ukraine.“The drawings pinned on the wall … spoke to a context of love and support that was once there. But this home was empty, a result of alleged deportation of children from Ukraine to the Russian Federation or their unlawful transfer to other parts of the temporarily occupied territories,” he said in a statement. “As I noted to the United Nations Security Council last September, these alleged acts are being investigated by my Office as a priority. Children cannot be treated as the spoils of war.”While Russia rejected the allegations and warrants of the court as null and void, others said the ICC action will have an important impact.“The ICC has made Putin a wanted man and taken its first step to end the impunity that has emboldened perpetrators in Russia’s war against Ukraine for far too long,” an associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch, Balkees Jarrah, said. On Thursday, a UN-backed inquiry cited Russian attacks against civilians in Ukraine, including systematic torture and killing in occupied regions, among potential issues that amount to war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.The sweeping investigation also found crimes committed against Ukrainians on Russian territory, including deported Ukrainian children who were prevented from reuniting with their families, a “filtration” system aimed at singling out Ukrainians for detention, and torture and inhumane detention conditions.On Friday, the ICC put the face of Mr. Putin on the child abduction allegations.

Wanted: Vladimir Putin, for War Crimes

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