Decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue a warrant for the arrest of the President of Russia Vladimir Putin is outrageous and absurd. This was announced to journalists on Friday by the permanent representative RF at UN Vasily Nebenzya.
“This is absolutely outrageous. We do not recognize any decisions of the ICC,” he stressed. “This is absolute absurdity.”
International Criminal Court earlier Friday gave out an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin and Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova. The document states that they may be involved in “war crimes consisting in the illegal deportation of the population (children) and the illegal transfer of the population (children) from the occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
The ICC was created by the 1998 Rome Statute. It is not part of the UN and is accountable to countries that have ratified the statute. Countries not party to the statute include Russia (signed but not ratified), the United States (signed but later withdrew), and China (did not sign the statute). In 2016, Putin signed a decree under which Russia would not become a member of the ICC. According to the statement Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federationthis court “did not justify the hopes placed on it and did not become a truly independent body of international justice.”
