Arrest warrant issued for Russia’s President Putin for alleged war crimes
ICC has issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin for the alleged trafficking of children from Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine. Olga Ishina from BBC Russian says it would be quite hard to arrest Mr. Putin unless he leaves the territory of Russia.
This follows on from a commission which found that Russia had committed human rights abuses over the last year in Ukraine. The Russian foreign ministry has been quick to point out that they're not a member of the statutes that underpins the International Criminal Court. The U.S. doesn't recognize the authority of the ICC. The court could have focused on lots of other military commanders on the Russian side who have bombed civilians, schools, hospitals, and residential areas. "The world has received a signal that the Russian regime is criminal," they say, "and will be held accountable, and that is really significant to the Ukrainians. They have been demanding a process of accountability to start. They know it's going to be a long game. They know that any form of justice will take many, many years. If you go back all the way to the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, it took decades before some people were prosecuted."