ICC orders arrest of Vladimir Putin for war crimes against Ukrainian children
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for the unlikely arrest of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Russian Confederation Commissioner for Children’s Rights Alekseyevna Lvova-Belov.
Putin, who ordered his army to invade Ukraine 13 months ago, “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of illegal deportation of population (children) and illegal transfer of population (children) from the occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.” . CPI indicted on Friday.
The same claims were made against Lvova-Belova. She is a 38-year-old mother of at least 10 children, some of whom have been adopted, according to CNN. a boy she talked about adopting last year he is a teenager from Mariupol, a Ukrainian city invaded and occupied by Russia. Lvova-Belova claims that once Ukrainian children are brought to their country, they come to “love” Russia.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Putin has individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes,” according to the ICC.
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The international court, based in the Netherlands and representing 123 nations, accuses Putin of committing the alleged acts “directly, together with others and/or through others.”
A February Associated Press investigation found that “Russian officials have deported Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-controlled territories without consent, lied to them that their parents did not want them, used them for propaganda, and gave them Russian families and citizenship.”
Russia’s own laws prohibit children from being adopted from countries where consent was not granted, though Putin’s siege of Ukraine indicates he does not recognize his neighbor’s sovereignty.
It is highly unlikely that Putin will turn himself or Lvova-Belova over to the ICC.
“As a judicial institution, the ICC does not have its own police force or enforcement agency; therefore, it relies on cooperation with countries around the world for support, in particular in making arrests, transferring arrested persons to the ICC detention center in The Hague, freezing suspects’ assets, and enforcing sentences”, says the ICC on its website.
with cable news services