Biden welcomes ICC’s war crimes allegations against Putin

• The ICC charged President Putin with war crimes in Ukraine.
• Moscow has disputed the claims and slammed the warrants as “outrageous”.
• Russia is not a member of the International Criminal Court, hence the court has no jurisdiction there.

US Vice President Joseph Biden has welcomed the International Criminal Court’s issuance of an arrest warrant against his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.

The ICC charged President Putin with war crimes in Ukraine, which President Biden claimed the Russian leader had “obviously” done.

The charges center on the illegal transfer of children from Ukraine to Russia after Moscow’s invasion in 2022.

Moscow has disputed the claims and slammed the warrants as “outrageous”.

The measure is unlikely to have much of an impact because the ICC lacks the authority to arrest people without the cooperation of a country’s government.

Russia is not a member of the International Criminal Court, hence the court has no jurisdiction there.

Yet, it may have an impact on Mr. Putin in other ways, such as his ability to travel worldwide. He might now be detained if he steps foot in any of the court’s 123 member states.

Mr. Putin is only the third president to have an ICC arrest warrant issued against him.

Officially concluded

President Biden noted that, while the court also held no sway in the US, the granting of the order “makes a very strong point”.

His administration had previously “officially concluded” that Russia had committed war crimes during the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, with Vice-President Kamala Harris announcing in February that those responsible would “be called to account”.

The UN also issued a report earlier this week concluding that Moscow’s forced relocation of Ukrainian minors to territories under its control constituted a war crime.

The ICC said in a statement on Friday that it had reasonable grounds to believe Mr. Putin committed the crimes directly as well as in collaboration with others. It also accused him of failing to use his presidential authority to prevent the deportation of children.

Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, is also wanted by the ICC for the same offenses.

Forensic Evidence

The warrants were issued “based on forensic evidence, scrutiny, and what those two individuals said,” according to ICC prosecutor Karim Khan.

The court considered keeping the arrest warrants private at first but decided to make them public in order to prevent more crimes from being committed.

“Children can’t be treated as the spoils of war, they can’t be deported,” Mr. Khan told the sources.

“This type of crime doesn’t need one to be a lawyer, one needs to be a human being to know how egregious it is.”

Mr. Khan also stated that no one expected Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader who was tried for war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo in the 1990s, to end up in The Hague to face justice.

“Those that feel that you can commit a crime in the daytime, and sleep well at night, should perhaps look at history,” Mr Khan said.

Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, claimed any decisions made by the court were “null and void,” while former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev compared the warrant to toilet paper.

The statement has been welcomed by Russian opposition activists. Ivan Zhdanov, a close supporter of imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, tweeted that it was “a symbolic step,” but one that was significant.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed his thanks to Mr. Khan and the ICC for their decision to press charges against “state evil”.

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