US Biden Says War Crimes Charges Against Russia’s Putin Justified | Vladimir Putin news
The Kremlin says the International Criminal Court’s charges against Vladimir Putin are meaningless in terms of jurisdiction in Russia.
US President Joe Biden said that Vladimir Putin clearly committed war crimes in Ukraine and that the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against the Russian president.
Although the US, like Russia, is not a party to the international court, Biden said the ICC has made strong arguments against Putin.
“He clearly committed war crimes,” Biden told reporters Friday. “I think it’s justified,” he said, referring to the arrest warrant.
“We don’t recognize him internationally either. But I think it makes a very strong point,” he added.
The ICC on Friday called for Putin’s arrest on suspicion of his involvement in the illegal deportation and transfer of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The court also issued an arrest warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, on the same charges.
The ICC warrant now obliges the 123 member states of the court to arrest Putin and transfer him to The Hague for trial if he enters their territory.
The Kremlin said the court’s charges against Putin were outrageous and meaningless in terms of jurisdiction in Russia.
A US-backed report by Yale University researchers last month found that Russia has held at least 6,000 Ukrainian children in at least 43 camps and other facilities as part of a “large-scale systematic network.”
Ukraine’s government recently said more than 14,700 children have been deported to Russia, including more than 1,000 from the port city of Mariupol, which was under siege for weeks and nearly destroyed.
The US has separately concluded that Russian forces committed war crimes in Ukraine and supports accountability for perpetrators of war crimes, a State Department spokesman said in an emailed statement.
“There is no doubt that Russia is committing war crimes and atrocities (in) Ukraine and we have made it clear that those responsible must be held accountable,” the spokesman added.
ICC President Piotr Hofmanski said in a video statement that the court’s judges issued the warrants, but it will be up to the international community to enforce them. The court does not have its own police for this.
The ICC, under its founding treaty, the Rome Statute, can impose a maximum sentence of life imprisonment “if justified by the extreme seriousness of the crime”. This established the ICC as the permanent court of last resort to prosecute political leaders and others primarily responsible for the world’s worst atrocities – war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.
