The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights.
Putin is now, officially, a wanted man. He has the distinction of being the third head of state to be indicted by the ICC while still in office.
To his supporters and apologists, Putin is engaged in a mass-scale effort to demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine while saving Russian-speaking regions and minorities. They argue that Russia is not involved in a war but in a “special military operation”. It is currently illegal in Russia to refer to this as a “war”.
Some facts cannot be denied even if one accepts this tenuous and convoluted reasoning. Putin’s forces are responsible for a large number of atrocities, including the destruction of civilian property, torture and execution of prisoners of war, violence on innocent civilians, the wanton targeting of infrastructure, extrajudicial killings, mass displacement of people, the deportation of millions of Ukrainians and the mass abduction of children.
The last two charges led the ICC to issue its warrant.
Unsurprisingly, the Kremlin has come out against this, accusing the ICC of exhibiting a “clear hostility” towards Russia and its president. A Kremlin spokesperson tried to appear magnanimous: “If we took everyone to heart, nothing good would come of it… we look at this calmly, note everything attentively and continue to work.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed the ICC move by pointing out that its statements “have no meaning for our country, including from a legal point of view”. Russia backed out from the ICC in 2016 after it classified its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula as an armed conflict. In private, top Kremlin officials must be very worried: when will the ICC’s long arm reach them as well?
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials have reacted positively to this development. President Volodymyr Zelensky described it as a historic decision leading to “historic accountability”. Zelensky lays the blame for the deportation of Ukrainian children at the door of Putin, claiming that “it would have been impossible to enact such a criminal operation without the say-so of the man at the helm of the terrorist state”.
This ICC war crimes arrest warrant is not likely to change the war’s outcome but it remains a significant development. Putin is not likely to face the court or be arrested.
However, there are precedents for this happening, not least in bringing to justice those who committed atrocities in the former Yugoslavia. This arrest warrant goes a long way toward acknowledging the gravity of the unfolding situation in Ukraine.
It also makes it harder for Putin to travel freely since the 123 member states of the ICC are obliged to arrest and transfer Putin should he choose to visit their country. This inevitably means he cannot travel to any European Union member- state, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Japan, Switzerland and other countries in Africa, Oceania and South America.
Putin will remain free to travel in those countries that are not signatories. They include China, India and the United States. Yet, with the exception of those countries that are somewhat partially aligned with Russia, a visit by a man wanted for war crimes may prove very embarrassing. Putin’s pariah status has been sealed.
Unfortunately, the prospect of peace also partially depends on the actions of this pariah. Yet, this latest move also drives home the most essential point – that there can be no peace without some form of lasting justice.