The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a Arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for committing war crimes due to his involvement in the abductions of children from Ukraine.
The court said in a statement that Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of illegal deportation of population (children) and the illegal transfer of population (children) from the occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”.
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It also issued an order on Friday for the arrest of Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, on similar charges.
The ICC said that its trial chamber found that there were “reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect is responsible of the war crime of illegal deportation of population and illegal transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, to the detriment of Ukrainian children”.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan declared this month after a visit to Ukraine that alleged child abductions were the subject of “a priority investigation”.
The court, created in 2002 to judge the worst crimes committed in the world, has been investigating possible war crimes or against humanity committed in Ukraine during the Russian offensive.
