Russia's Investigative Committee has announced a criminal case against the prosecutor and judges of the International Criminal Court in The Hague after it issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin and Russian children's rights ombudswoman Maria Lvova-Belova.
The Investigative Committee stated that the prosecution of the President of Russia and the children's ombudsman by the court "is obviously illegal, since there are no grounds for criminal liability."
The International Court of Justice in The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova on March 17. The arrest warrants were issued based on applications filed by the International Criminal Court Prosecutor's Office on February 22, 2023.
“Mr. Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, born on October 7, 1952, President of the Russian Federation, is allegedly responsible for the war crime of illegal deportation of the population (children) and illegal transfer of the population (children) from the occupied territories of Ukraine to the territory of the Russian Federation. The crimes were allegedly committed in the occupied territory of Ukraine since at least February 24, 2022. There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr. Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the above crimes, for committing acts directly, jointly with and/or through others, and for his failure to properly supervise the civilian and military subordinates who committed these acts.”
Lvova-Belova is also suspected of the same. At the same time, it is reported that initially the warrants were secret, but they decided to make the information public "to prevent further crimes."
The representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, in response to the decision of the International Criminal Court, said that Russia would not comply with it, since "it is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and does not bear obligations under it."
International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan said arrest warrants for Putin and Lvova-Belova will remain in place for the rest of their lives until they stand trial.