The International Criminal Court Issues Arrest Warrant for Putin
Why this matters, and what might happen next
As good as this news is, don’t expect Putin to be frog-marched out of the Kremlin (or any of his notoriously gaudy, gold-plated mansions) any time soon.
Since Russia is not a member nation of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Putin would need to be arrested by his people (fat chance), or he’d need to travel to a state where the ICC has jurisdiction for his arrest to occur.
Still, there could be political repercussions for Russia. The very fact of this warrant makes one thing clear: evidence of war crimes has been presented, vetted, and confirmed by the ICC, making it harder for Russians to deny Putin’s actions. (A warrant was also issued for the Russian commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova.)
The charges against both Putin and Lvova-Belova include “unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of people from the territory of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
In other words, Russia’s commissioner of children’s rights has been colluding with Putin to kidnap Ukrainian children and force them to go to Russia, where they are programmed to become little Russians.
This is not the first time a dictator kidnapped children in wartime and forced them to be raised by members of his political party.
Hitler did this in WWII. Then, it was called the Lebensborn program.
The SS organized these kidnappings to take children by force who matched the Nazis’ racial criteria (blond hair and blue or green eyes). Thousands of children were transferred to the Lebensborn centers to be “Germanized.” Up to 100,000 children may have been stolen from Poland alone.
The Kremlin responds to Putin’s arrest warrant
As expected, a spokesperson for the Kremlin was outraged at the accusations against Putin and Lvova-Belova, but interestingly, he did not deny them.
“We consider the very posing of the question outrageous and unacceptable. Russia, like several states, does not recognize the jurisdiction of this court and, accordingly, any decisions of this kind are null and void for the Russian Federation from the point of view of the law,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov tweeted Friday.
(The U.S. is not a member of the ICC either — but that’s another story.)
Despite Russia’s claims, according to ICC President Piotr Hofmanski, it is “completely irrelevant” that Russia is not a member. When a crime is committed in the territory of either a member state “or a state which has accepted its jurisdiction,” which Ukraine has, then a member state referral is all that’s needed to trigger the jurisdiction of the ICC.
According to Hofmanski, 43 states referred “the situation in Ukraine to the court, which means they have formally triggered our jurisdiction. . . The court has jurisdiction over crimes committed on anyone on the territory of Ukraine from November 2013 onwards regardless of the nationality of the alleged perpetrators,” Hofmanski said. (emphasis, mine)
This nuance might explain why Russians are so upset about this. They may not recognize the ICC, but the ICC recognizes them.
Putin’s supporters lash out
The head of RT (Russia’s state-run media channel), Margarita Simonyan, was practically apoplectic after the news was announced.
Simonyan’s claim that Russia “took the children no one else wanted” is not surprising. But her follow-on comments, which included “the Hague is shit,” indicate someone more concerned than she’d like us to believe. If this is meaningless, why the uproar?
(As an aside, Simonyan also offered her “wishes for the best of luck” to Donald Trump in apparent anticipation of his pending indictments.)
Another Putin fanboy, Vladimir Solovyov, was similarly outraged by the action of the ICC, calling for all ICC judges to be served with arrest warrants, referring to them as “bastards” and “degenerates.” However, he failed to say what crimes they should be arrested for.
The tirade didn’t stop there. Solovyov said that any country that dared to arrest Putin should prepare for nuclear war. And the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma, Irina Yarovaya, called the arrest warrant “an act of international terrorism.”
Finally, commentator Andrey Perla (a guest on Solovyov’s RT program Soloyov Live) said, "This is a declaration of intent to enslave Russia.”
Perla thinks Putin’s arrest will lead to several implausible events, eventually culminating in a global shift in power that will end U.S. dominance. “Russia and China will be the leaders of the free world, as well as independent nations that will collaborate with us — like Iran.”
Perla must not be aware of the political turmoil in Iran. People are being murdered for protesting the deaths of women who dare to show their hair, and one couple was given ten years in prison for dancing. So, that’s Russia’s idea of an “independent” nation.
What does it all mean?
Putin’s supporters are lashing out in such an extreme fashion that it’s impossible to believe those who say this action is “irrelevant.” It is never irrelevant when the leader of a country is indicted as a war criminal.
Putin’s freedom to travel has been severely curtailed. He could be arrested if he travels anywhere other than to a handful of sympathetic countries (Iran, China, North Korea, Belarus).
But even if Putin prefers the company of his cronies to that of foreigners, he will not be unaffected by this. History is not kind to leaders who are accused of war crimes. On “The Last Word” (3.17.23), O’Donnell’s guest, David Scheffer, pointed out that once a leader is indicted as a war criminal, he will not only be known forever as “an international pariah” but will “enter a new zone of risk for his own power.”
According to Scheffer, Putin’s indictment will almost certainly lead to domestic turmoil and his eventual replacement. Once that occurs, if history is any indication, Putin will be transferred to the Hague, where he will stand trial.
In short, it’s the beginning of the end for Vladimir Putin — and potentially many of his colleagues. And while we shouldn’t hold our breath, we may be justified in breathing a small sigh of relief.