On Friday, Ukraine welcomed the issuance of an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin called the ICC decision “historic for Ukraine and the entire system of international law”.
“Today’s decision is a historic step. But this is just the beginning of a long journey to restore justice,” Kostin wrote on Telegram. He recalled that his office had submitted more than 40 volumes of documents on the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children to the ICC.
The head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, Andrii Yermak, said issuing an arrest warrant for Putin is “just the beginning”.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba tweeted: “The wheels of justice have turned: I applaud the ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova in connection with the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children.
The ICC believes that Putin should be arrested because he is suspected of illegal deportation of Ukrainian children and illegal movement of people from Ukrainian territory to the Russian Federation. On the same charges, the ICC has also issued an arrest warrant against Russia’s Children’s Ombudsman, Maria Lvova-Belova.
Ukraine officially declares that more than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been illegally transferred to Russia or to Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.
A report by Yale researchers released in February 2023 says Russia is holding at least 6,000 Ukrainian children in Crimea, which Moscow annexed to Ukraine in 2014. The report lists at least 43 camps and other institutions where Ukrainian children were held. detained.
Russia does not hide the program under which it transported thousands of Ukrainian children, and presents it as a “humanitarian action to protect orphans and abandoned children in the conflict zone”.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan launched an investigation into possible war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Ukraine a year ago. During four trips to Ukraine, he said he was investigating allegations of crimes against children and attacks on civilian infrastructure.
The jurisdiction of the ICC extends to crimes committed on the territories of countries that have ratified the Rome Statute. Russia and Ukraine have not, and Moscow has repeatedly said it does not recognize its jurisdiction. But Ukraine’s appeal to the ICC in 2015 gives this court jurisdiction over war crimes committed on Ukrainian soil, even if committed by Russian citizens or other non-EU states. .
The arrest warrant obliges member states to arrest Putin or Lvova-Belova if they travel to countries that have ratified the Rome Statute.
However, the ICC does not have its own police or other means of forced arrest.
