US President Joe Biden welcomes the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin in connection with alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
Biden said the Russian president “clearly committed war crimes” and that while the order was not recognized in the US, it was “justified” and “a very strong argument.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed the decision of the “head of a terrorist state” to forcibly deport Ukrainian children to Russia and warned that the actual number of those deported “may be much higher” than currently known.
He added: “It would not be possible to carry out such a criminal operation without the order of the supreme leader of the terrorist state.”
The comments came after British Foreign Secretary James Cleverley said it was important that the leaders of the Moscow regime be held accountable for the atrocities committed since the invasion a year ago.
The International Criminal Court in The Hague said Friday it had issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader in connection with the alleged kidnapping and deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia.
The Kremlin immediately dismissed the allegations as “legally invalid” that do not recognize the ICC.
Putin signed a decree last year making it easier for Ukrainian children left without parental care to obtain citizenship of the Russian Federation.
Putin and his presidential plenipotentiary for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, have unveiled efforts to “evacuate” orphans and foster children from the newly Russian-occupied territories to “safe places.” In May 2022, Ms. Lvova-Belova reported that 1,200 children from orphanages in Donetsk and Lugansk had arrived in the country. A September video on her Telegram channel showed her at a Moscow airport with 135 children from Mariupol. Other videos show crying Russian adoptive parents meeting Ukrainian adoptees. Ms Lvova-Belova herself adopted a 15-year-old Ukrainian boy, and children from Mariupol took the stage with a Russian soldier at a rally in Moscow this week.
The forced transfer and deportation of civilians to the territory of the occupiers is prohibited by the Fourth Geneva Convention. This law is also included in the 1948 Genocide Convention.
The investigation carried out I Last year, dozens of places were discovered in Russia where Ukrainian survivors, including women and children, were taken thousands of miles from their homes.
Mr Cleverley said in a social media statement: “Those responsible for the heinous war crimes in Ukraine must be held accountable.
“We welcome the decision of the independent ICC to hold the leaders of the Russian regime, including Vladimir Putin, accountable.
“We must continue to investigate the atrocities that have been committed.”
Union leader Sir Keir Starmer, former head of the public prosecutor’s office, also backed the move.
“Today’s announcement is an important signal that Putin and his minions will have no hiding place and the world is determined to make them pay for what they have done,” he said.
“These cases are just the tip of the iceberg. One day Putin will be held accountable: until then, all who believe in the freedom and freedom of Ukraine should be focused on its victory.”
While there is no immediate prospect of Putin’s arrest, legal experts point to the examples of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic and Liberian President Charles Taylor as international leaders on trial in The Hague.
Dominic Raab, deputy prime minister and minister of justice, told the BBC: “I suspect it will be a long journey, but people have been saying it’s about Yugoslavia and Rwanda and many of those responsible for the massacre found themselves in the dock. court.
“In the short term, it will be very difficult for President Putin to move around the world because there are so many countries that are parties to the ICC that are obliged to arrest him.”
Source: I News
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