Russia’s Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case against the prosecutor and judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) who issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin on war crimes charges. The committee alleges that the ICC knowingly accused an innocent person of a crime.
The Kremlin has called the warrant outrageous but legally void, since Russia is not a signatory to the treaty that created the ICC. The ICC’s move obliges the court’s 123 member states to arrest Putin and transfer him to The Hague for trial if he sets foot on their territory. However, Putin is unlikely to take that risk, and Russia does not extradite its citizens.
The move against a serving president was an important symbolic step to pin responsibility on him for the consequences of his invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine claims that more than 16,000 children have been illegally transferred to Russia or Russian-occupied territories since the war began nearly 13 months ago.
