Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations declared that “there is no purgatory for war criminals, they go straight to hell” in a speech delivered after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Those who remain alive after the military defeat of Russia will have to make a stopover in The Hague on his way to hell” Sergiy Kyslytsya said on Friday, according to EuroNews.
Kyslytsya’s fiery comments came shortly after the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin, accusing him of kidnapping Ukrainian children and teenagers. It was the first time the global court had issued an arrest warrant against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.
The ICC said in a statement that Putin, who ordered his army to invade Ukraine more than a year ago, “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of illegal deportation of (children) and the illegal transfer of (children) from the occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”.
The Netherlands-based international court, which represents 123 nations, also issued an arrest warrant for Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, on similar charges..
The measure was immediately ruled out by Moscow, which does not recognize the jurisdiction of the court. That means Putin and Lvova-Belova are highly unlikely to turn themselves in.
The Russian president’s spokesman criticized the order as “outrageous and unacceptable”, adding that it is also “legally void”.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials praised the move. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it a “historic decision, from which a historic responsibility will begin.”
with cable news services
