The court at The Hague accused the Russian president of bearing criminal responsibility for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children. Human rights groups praised the move, though the likelihood of an imminent arrest appeared slim.
The International Criminal Court on Friday issued a war crimes arrest warrant for President Vladimir V. Putin.Credit...Sergei Bobylev/Sputnik, via Associated Press
he International Criminal Court on Friday issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for war crimes, a move that Ukrainian officials and human-rights groups hailed as an important step in holding Moscow to account for abuses during its yearlong war.
The court issued the warrant just days before Mr. Putin is scheduled to receive China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, in Russia. There was no immediate comment from Beijing on the arrest warrant.
The International Criminal Court's arrest warrant focuses on the Russia's wartime abduction of children, but Ukrainian prosecutors said on Friday that they were aware of more than 72,000 Russian war crimes, which includes acts that led to almost 10,000 civilian deaths, according to Mykola Govorukha, a representative of the Office of the Prosecutor General. The photograph shows the exhumation of a 15-year-old girl in the recently liberated southern Ukrainian village of Pravdyne in November.
In the past, the judges at the International Criminal Court have taken months to review charges before issuing arrest warrants. But the devastation taking place in Ukraine has put the court under pressure to act swiftly. More than 40 countries that are parties to the court have requested its intervention.
