Beden welcomes arrest warrant for Putin

US President Joe Biden has welcomed the International Criminal Court's decision to issue arrest warrants against Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

The court has accused Putin of committing war crimes in Ukraine of something President Biden has said the Russian leader “has made clear”.

The claims focus on the illegal expulsion of children from Ukraine to Russia from the start of the Moscow war in 2022.

Moscow has dismissed these claims and named the arrest warrant as <x0fyes”.

There is very little likely to result from this move, as the International Criminal Court has no power to arrest suspects in Russia, without co-operation with the Russian government.

Russia is not a member state in this court with headquarters at The Hague what it means is that it has no authority on Russian territory.

However, the decision may affect Putin in other ways, such as the inability to travel around the world.

He could be arrested if his leg breaks into one of the 123 court member states.

Putin is only the third president to whom arrest warrants have been issued by the International Criminal Court.

The prosecutor of this court, Karim Khan, has said no one has thought Slobodan Milosevic, the Serb leader who has been tried for war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo in the 1990s, would end up in The Hague to face justice.

Milosevic has died until the trial was under way.

“Those who think they can commit crimes during the day, and get a good night's sleep, maybe they should look at the history”, Khan said.

The court, at first, has considered the possibility of keeping the warrant secret, but then decided to go public and stop committing other crimes.

Russian opposition activists have welcomed the news about Putin.

Ivan Zhudanov, the close ally of the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has said the arrest warrant is “the symbolic step”, but important.

Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky has thanked the court for the verdict to charge the evil state “”.

The war in Ukraine began on February 24, 2022.

Russian President Vladimir Putin calls the war “special military operation” to demilitarise Ukraine.

The West has responded to Russia, striking the economy of this state with severe sanctions.

As a result of the war, thousands have died, and millions of others have been displaced from their homes. /rel