Photo: Presidential Executive Office of Russia
The International Criminal Court at the Hague issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova Belova.
They are charged with war crimes for the forcible deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied territories to the Russian Federation, at least from 24 February 2022.
The ICC believes that there are sufficient grounds to believe that both Putin and Lvova Belova bear personal responsibility for these acts.
Important Points:
The chances of Putin facing trial at the ICC are highly unlikely because Moscow does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction or extradite its nationals.
Russian and Russian-controlled forces have committed war crimes as well as potential crimes against humanity.
"Filtration" is the abusive screening process where some civilians were arbitrarily detained, subjected to torture or other ill-treatment, and separated from their children.
Since 2014, Russia has systematically pursued a policy of eliminating the Ukrainian identity of children in the occupied territories.
The forced deportations of more than 16,000 Ukrainian children have been recorded.
Children have been taken from areas of the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kharkiv, and Kherson while under Russian occupation.