The President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, could now be arrested as the International Criminal Court issued a warrant against him for committing war crimes in Ukraine.
What is the Complete Story?
The US President has welcomed the arrest warrant against his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, issued by the International Criminal Court. ICC has accused Putin for committing war crimes in Ukraine.
Biden said the Russian leader had clearly committed war crimes. Since the Moscow invasion in 2022, the issues claimed in the warrant have focused on the illegal deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.
However, Moscow denied all the claims and publicly described the warrant as outrageous. Without the support of the country’s government, and Russia is also not a member of the ICC, the International Criminal Court has no authority to arrest Putin.
But still, it could affect the suspect in other ways, such as he can’t travel internationally and be arrested if he steps into any court’s 123 member states. However, Vladimir Putin is the third president to receive an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court.
Issuing a Warrant makes a Strong Point
President Biden made a statement that as the ICC held no sway in the United States, issuing the warrant makes a solid point. He added that Putin clearly committed war crimes.
With vice president Kamala Harris, the Biden administration had determined that Russia had committed war crimes during the conflict in Ukraine.
Earlier this week, the United Nations reported that Moscow’s forced removal of Ukraine children to areas amounted to a war crime.
On Friday, ICC made a statement that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Putin committed the crimes directly and used his presidential power to stop children from being deported.
Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights also wanted the same
Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, also wanted the same from ICC. Karim Khan, the ICC prosecutor, made a statement that warrants were based on forensic evidence and scrutiny.
However, earlier, ICC considered keeping the warrants secret. But now, they decided to make them public to stop the crimes being committed. Karim added that children couldn’t be treated as the spoils of war and couldn’t be deported.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said ICC’s decisions were null and void, and former President Dmitry Medvedev compared the warrant to toilet paper. On the other hand, Russian opposition activists welcomed the court’s decisions.
Opposition leader Alexei Navalny tweeted that it was a symbolic but essential step. Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian President, expressed his thanks to the ICC for issuing a warrant against the state evil (Vladimir Putin).
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