The arrest warrants issued recently by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his children’s commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, represent the first time officials of a permanent member of the United Nations security council have been indicted for a war crime.
The charge is that they presided over the forced deportation of Ukrainian children from areas occupied by the Russian military. “There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes,” the ICC said in a statement on March 17.
The ICC is reportedly considering evidence of alleged crimes against humanity committed by another permanent member of the security council, China. The crimes under investigation include disappearances, forced sterilisations, executions and the detention of more than a million people.
