Vladimir Putin and his close circle brazenly dismissed the fresh arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Russia’s former Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and the Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov were slapped on June 25 with arrest warrants for alleged international crimes, war crimes and crimes against humanity in relation to the war in Ukraine.
The court said the powerful pair is allegedly responsible for the war crimes of directing attacks at civilian objects and causing excessive incidental harm to civilians or damage to civilian objects.
The Russian Security Council, the state agency supporting the Russian president’s decision-making on national security affairs and matters of strategic interest, was quick to react to the warrants.
The decision, the council said according to Russian state news agency TASS, was “part of the hybrid war of the West against the Russian Federation”.
The ICC decision, the government body also said, was “null and void”.
The council is chaired by Putin, who is assisted by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev as his deputy chairman and Shoigu in the role of the agency’s secretary.
While the warrants were described as akin to “shaking of the air” by the Kremlin, Ukrainian officials welcomed the announcement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the warrants were evidence that “no military rank or cabinet door can shield Russian criminals from accountability”.
The ICC already issued in March last year two other warrants, this time against Putin and Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, for an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia or Russian-held territories.
The ICC operates independently and is recognised by 124 countries – with the notable exceptions of the US, Russia and Ukraine among others.
The warrants hugely limit the capacity of Putin, Lvova-Belova, Gerasimov and Shoigu to travel abroad, as heading to a country recognising the authority of the ICC would lead to their arrest.
