The announcement by the international criminal court (ICC) of an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin is historically significant. In some ways, it was always inevitable: this is Putin’s illegal war of aggression, after all. But few inside or outside Ukraine believed it would happen so soon.
There are obvious questions about the practicalities of delivering Putin to the court – how, where, when? (Answers: with difficulty; who knows; and not soon.) But the essential rationale is undeniable. Holding senior political and military leaders to account is exactly what the ICC was set up for, 25 years ago. If not Putin, who?
