1 year ago
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The International Criminal Court on Friday issued international arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for allegedly abducting Ukrainian children and transporting them to Russia.
The Hague-based ICC said that there are "reasonable grounds to believe" that Putin and Lvova-Belova bear "individual criminal responsibility" for "the war crime of unlawful deportation" of Ukrainian children "from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation."
ICC President Judge Piotr Hofmański said in a video statement announcing the warrant that "it is forbidden by international law for occupying powers to transfer civilians from the territory they live in to other territories. Children enjoy special protection under the Geneva Convention."
Ukrainian officials accuse Russian forces of taking around 14,000 children from Ukraine to Russia since Putin launched the invasion in February 2022.
"They change their citizenship, give them up for adoption under guardianship, commit sexual violence and other crimes," Daria Herasymchuk, the commissioner for children's rights and rehabilitation for Ukraine, told Euronews.
Lvova-Belova has defended the deportations as "saving" lost or orphaned children.
The ICC warrants came one day after the United Nations' Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine published a report detailing Russian war crimes against Ukrainians including "willful killings, attacks on civilians, unlawful confinement, torture, rape, and forced transfers and deportations of children."
