ICC Issues Arrest Warrant for Vladimir Putin

The international criminal court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Russian president Vladimir Putin, alleging war crimes over his countries actions in Ukraine.

A panel of judges agreed that there were “reasonable grounds” to think Putin and his children’s rights commissioner, Maria Aleksandrovna Lvova-Belova, were responsible for the “illegal deportation” of Ukrainian children in granting the ICC prosecutor’s request for arrest warrants.

It is a rare occurrence for the court to issue an arrest warrant for a sitting head of state.

Before choosing to issue the warrants, the ICC pre-trial chamber of judges contemplated keeping them secret, but ultimately determined that making them public would “contribute to the prevention of the further commission of crimes”

The Kremlin was indignant in response to the news by the ICC.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova posted on her Telegram channel: “The decisions of the international criminal court have no meaning for our country, including from a legal point of view,”

“Russia is not a party to the Rome statute of the international criminal court and bears no obligations under it.”

The Russian leadership has openly admitted to bringing Ukrainian children to Russia and placing them in camps or making them available for adoption by Russian families.