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Key Points
- The ICC judges have issued out an arrest warrant for Russian president over alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
- He is accused of unlawfully deporting thousands of Ukrainian children.
- A warrant was also issued against Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova for the same war crime.
- Russia refuses any wrongdoing and says its forces have not committed any atrocities in the year-long war.
As the war in Ukraine rages on unabated, the International Criminal Court (ICC) judges have issued a warrant of arrest for Russian president Vladimir Putin over alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
Another warrant of arrest was also issued for Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova in the same “context of the situation in Ukraine”. The two are jointly accused of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.
The import of the arrest warrants is that the ICC’s 123 member states are obliged to arrest Putin if he steps foot in their territory, and transfer him to The Hague for trial purposes. And the same goes for Lvova-Belova.
In light of what has been perceived as a “bold legal move”, Russia obstinately maintains its unwavering position that its military forces have not committed any atrocities.
As such, Russia views the ICC’s legal intervention to the one-year long war as “null and void”.
The ICC maintains that Russia should answer for its war crimes in Ukraine. On the ICC site, the development was announced as follows:
Mr Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, born on 7 October 1952, President of the Russian Federation, is 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 (under articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute). The crimes were allegedly committed in Ukrainian occupied territory at least from 24 February 2022. There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes, (i) for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others (article 25(3)(a) of the Rome Statute), and (ii) for his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts, or allowed for their commission, and who were under his effective authority and control, pursuant to superior responsibility (article 28(b) of the Rome Statute).
Ms Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, born on 25 October 1984, Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, is 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 (under articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute). The crimes were allegedly committed in Ukrainian occupied territory at least from 24 February 2022. There are reasonable grounds to believe that Ms Lvova-Belova bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes, for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others (article 25(3)(a) of the Rome Statute).”
Since the Russia-Ukraine war began, these are the first warrants that have been issued by the ICC for war crimes — the ICC has issued an arrest warrant against a sitting president, the same fate that befell Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi and Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir.
The ICC has decided to keep the warrants a secret, explaining, “The Chamber considered that the warrants are secret in order to protect victims and witnesses and also to safeguard the investigation.”
According to Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, more than 16,000 children are estimated to have been deported.
He described the ICC’s arrest warrants as “an historic decision which will lead to historic accountability.”
He added, “It would have been impossible to enact such a criminal operation without the say-so of the man at the helm of the terrorist state.”
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