The Hague, The Netherlands. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Children’s Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova. The ICC claims that Vladimir Putin is responsible for war crimes during the war in Ukraine, including the illegal deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia. The Russian Foreign Ministry has denied the atrocities and rejected the warrant as “devoid of any meaning.” Russia is not a signatory to the Rome Statute of the ICC, so Putin and Lvova-Belova will not be extradited. Ukraine’s Prosecutor General called the ICC’s announcement a “historic” decision. The court stated that “there are reasonable grounds to believe that Putin bears individual criminal responsibility” for the alleged crimes, for having committed them directly with others, and for “his failure to exercise adequate control over the civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts.”
