Yesterday, March 17, 2023, the II Preliminary Chamber of the International Criminal Court issued two arrest warrants against the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Commissioner for Children's Rights in Russia for war crimes.
The two politicians are accused of the war crime of illegal deportation of children and their transfer from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation. Both have been attributed individual criminal responsibility for having committed the aforementioned crimes directly and jointly with others starting at least from 24 February 2022.
The first case would concern the kidnapping, forced transfer and re-education in camps in Russia of Ukrainian children taken from areas invaded by the Russian army since February 24, 2022 in order, according to some analysts, to be placed in families to become Russian citizens or envoys to summer camps for rehabilitation.
Maria Zakharova, director of the information and press department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said the decisions of the International Criminal Court are meaningless for Russia, even from a legal point of view. She further stated that "Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and has no obligations under it."
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reported that Russia does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC) stating that “we consider the very wording of the matter outrageous and unacceptable. Russia, as well as many other states, do not recognize the jurisdiction of this court and, consequently, any such decision is null and void for Russia in terms of law"1.
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim AA Khan, during his fourth visit to Ukraine on March 7, said during a visit to a child protection home in southern Ukraine that it was empty following the alleged deportation of children from Ukraine to the Russian Federation or illegal transfer to other areas of the currently occupied territories of Ukraine
Some argue that the conflict in Ukraine has brought a declining international judicial system into the limelight, rehabilitating it as a strategic tool of international relations and conflict resolution. The prosecutor of the ICC quickly realized the opportunity he had to improve the role of the Court and the sudden willingness of many of its major donors, such as the states of the European Union, to strengthen the ICC and forget its many shortcomings , especially the fact that the prosecutor's office since April 2014, had not taken any action in eight years on this situation.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said on Thursday that Russia has committed wide-ranging war crimes in Ukraine, including forcibly deporting children to areas it controls. In its first report since Russia launched its offensive against Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the Commission concluded that "the situations it examined regarding the transfer and deportation of children, within Ukraine and the Russian Federation respectively, violate international humanitarian law and constitute a war crime"2.
Among potential crimes against humanity, investigators cited repeated attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure in recent months that have left hundreds of thousands of people without heat and electricity during the winter, as well as the widespread and systematic use of torture. Furthermore, "The Commission has noted that the waves of attacks carried out by the Russian Armed Forces since 10 October 2022 against Ukrainian energy infrastructure and the use of torture by the Russian authorities may constitute crimes against humanity"3.
1 taas.com
2,3 unric.com
Photo: Kremlin
