War crimes court issues Putin arrest warrant
The International Criminal Court on Friday announced an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on the war crime accusation of unlawfully deporting Ukrainian children. The Hague-based ICC said it had also issued a warrant against Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's presidential commissioner for children's rights, on similar charges. Moscow dismissed the orders as "void". Russia is not a party to the ICC so it was unclear if or how Putin could ever end up in the dock. War-battered Ukraine welcomed the ICC announcement, with President Volodymyr Zelensky hailing the "historic decision". More than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russia since the February 24, 2022 attack, according to Kyiv, with many allegedly placed in institutions and foster homes. ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said Putin was now liable for arrest if he set foot in any of the court's more than 120 member states. He said the arrest warrants were "based upon forensic evidence, scrutiny and what's been said by those two individuals". The ICC said judges found there were "reasonable grounds" to suspect Putin's criminal responsibility and grant Khan's application for the warrants, which were made back on February 22. During a meeting with Putin in mid-February, Lvova-Belova said she adopted a 15-year-old child from the devastated Ukrainian port city of Mariupol. "Now I know what it means to be a mother of a child from Donbas – it is a difficult job but we love each other, that is for sure," she told Putin. She added that "we evacuated children's homes into safe areas, arranged rehabilitation and prosthetics for them and provided them with targeted humanitarian assistance." "Russia, just like a number of different countries, does not recognise the jurisdiction of this court and so from a legal point of view, the decisions of this court are void," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev compared the warrants to toilet paper, while foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said they "have no meaning" for Russia. (AFP)