Vladimir Putin wanted by International Criminal Court – Kremlin calls move ‘outrageous and unacceptable’
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of abducting children from Ukraine.
It also issued a warrant for the arrest of Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Russia‘s commissioner for children, on similar allegations of war crimes.
The Kremlin said Russia found the questions raised by the ICC “outrageous and unacceptable”.
They added the warrants are “null and void” as Russia does not recognise the ICC and has not signed up to the Rome Statutes – the treaty underpinning the world’s permanent war crimes tribunal.
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Putin arrest warrant a ‘historic moment’
Meanwhile, Ms Lvova-Belova said her arrest warrant validated her work “helping the children of our country”.
In a statement, the court alleges the Russian president is “responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”.
The ICC said its pre-trial chamber found there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that the two suspects are responsible for the alleged war crimes and that Putin “bears individual criminal responsibility”.
Russia has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia but has presented the programme as a humanitarian campaign to protect abandoned children and orphans in conflict zones.
Sky News’ international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn said the chances of Putin going on trial are low.
Assessing the warrants, Waghorn said there is “a long list of people” who have been indicted but never had their day in court.
“Unless the war goes very badly for him – he’s toppled from power and he’s handed over – it’s unlikely he’s going to face trial,” Waghorn said.
Read our report from December:
CCTV shows chilling moment Russian FSB agents and soldiers scour Ukrainian orphanage for children
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CCTV shows Russians hunt Ukraine orphans
How many children have been taken from Ukraine?
The exact number of children taken from Ukraine is unclear, with different organisations offering different estimates.
Waghorn said: “One respected human rights group in America estimates 6,000 children have been deported to Russia, the Ukrainians reckon it’s more like 16,000, and the Russians themselves have said since 2014, 700,000 children have been taken from Ukraine.”
Andriy Yermak, chief of the Ukrainian presidential staff, said Ukraine had cooperated closely with the ICC and was currently investigating over 16,000 cases of forced children deportation to Russia.
Ukraine has managed to secure the return of 308 children so far.
Waghorn suggests the motivation for the mass abductions is twofold – older children can be trained to serve in the military while younger children are beneficial for Russian propaganda purposes.
“We have seen Ukrainian children and orphans being paraded at events in Moscow recently and paraded for the Russian population [with Putin] saying we’re saving these children, we’re doing a good job, trying to to bolster their claim that they are effectively saving the Ukrainians from themselves,” Waghorn said.
Arrest warrant makes diplomatic solution more problematic
Sky News was the first to reveal video evidence of Russian soldiers searching a place of sanctuary in Ukraine looking for children.
In December we broadcast chilling CCTV footage from an orphanage in Kherson where 15 children were taken at gunpoint by the Russian military and aired claims far younger children suffered the same fate in another orphanage nearby.
One independent study claims 6,000 children have been taken by the Russians, the Ukrainians say the true figure is more than twice that amount.
Throughout this war there have been repeated reports of children being abducted, kidnapped or simply persuaded to go with the Russians and never to return.
We have seen some children resurface in events in Russia some of them presided over by President Putin himself, paraded by the Russians claiming to have saved them from the war and the Ukrainian government that Moscow claims to be run by Nazis.
Those allegations are now the substance of International Criminal Court arrest warrants that go to the very top of the Russian government along with President Putin’s children’s rights commissioner Mara Lvova-Belova.
She has been seen on Russian state TV weeping, she says with joy, having adopted Ukrainian orphans that she claims to have saved.
She has been unashamed in boasting about what is happening to Ukraine’s children. She claims to believe she is rescuing them.
Outside of Russia she is seen as running a system whereby Ukrainian children are effectively being trafficked into Russia.
The development is very significant. It makes far more problematic hopes that a diplomatic solution can be negotiated to this conflict.
It also puts pressure on countries who have been ambivalent about Russia’s invasion abstaining in UN votes condemning it and colluding in Moscow’s efforts to avoid sanctions.
ICC investigation of war crimes
In a press conference, the president of the ICC Piotr Hofmanski said the warrants were “an important moment in the process of justice”.
He also said that the judges dealing with the case “determined there are credible allegations against these persons for the alleged crime”.
“Their execution [of the warrants] depends on international cooperation,” he said.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan had opened an investigation a year ago into possible war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Ukraine.
Mr Khan highlighted during previous trips that he was also examining the targeting of civilian infrastructure and alleged crimes against children, who have special protection under the Geneva Convention.
Ukraine is not a member of the court but has granted the ICC jurisdiction over its territory.
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Zelenskyy has called the ICC’s decision to issue an arrest warrant for Putin a ‘historic’ one’
Ukrainian and international response
In his nightly address to the nation, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it a “historic decision, from which historic responsibility will begin.”
“The head of a terrorist state and another Russian official have officially become suspects in a war crime,” he said.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly welcomed the ICC warrant which he said would “hold those at the top of the Russian regime, including Vladimir Putin, to account”.
“Work must continue to investigate the atrocities committed,” he wrote on Twitter.
White House National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said: “There is no doubt that Russia is committing war crimes and atrocities in Ukraine, and we have been clear that those responsible must be held accountable.”
Josep Borrell, the EU’s representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said the warrants are “just the start of holding Russia accountable for crimes and atrocities in Ukraine”.
Hundreds of police are hunting armed men who attacked a prison van in France – with a convict reportedly nicknamed “The Fly” escaping.
Two male prison officers were shot dead and three others seriously injured during the ambush on a motorway in Incarville, northwest France, at around 9am.
Eric Dupond-Moretti, France’s justice minister, said one of the officers leaves behind a wife who was five months pregnant, while the other was a 21-year-old father-of-two.
He said two of those injured are in a critical condition after Tuesday’s ambush.
The officers were transporting convict Mohamed Amra, 30, when they came under heavy fire, said the Paris prosecutor’s office.
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CCTV shows car smash into prison van
Footage shows a black car driving into the front of a white van, and later two armed men patrolling near a tollbooth on the A154 motorway.
Several men used two vehicles to target the van – with one later found burnt-out, a police source told French news agency AFP.
Mohamed Amra’s nickname is said to be ‘The Fly’, according to French media
Amra had been serving an 18-month sentence for “aggravated thefts” in the suburbs of Evreux, northwest France, according to BFM TV.
The French broadcaster said his nickname is “The Fly”.
Police sources also said Amra was involved in drug dealing, suspected of ordering a murder in Marseille, and had ties to the city’s powerful “Blacks” gang.
He had reportedly appeared before a judge in Rouen on Tuesday morning, accused of attempted homicide.
The attack on the van took place while he was being transported back to prison in Evreux, according to reports in France.
Footage shows the aftermath of a collision
A prison source told Le Parisien that the escaped inmate had tried to saw the bars off his cell two days ago.
He had reportedly been placed in solitary confinement and his surveillance level raised after the escape attempt.
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Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau said Amra was a “particularly monitored detainee” while in prison.
Gerald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, said “several hundred police officers” had been deployed to “find these criminals”.
French President Emmanuel Macron wrote on X: “This morning’s attack, which cost the lives of prison officers, is a shock to us all.
“The Nation stands alongside the families, the injured and their colleagues.
“Everything is being done to find the perpetrators of this crime so that justice can be done in the name of the French people. We will be intractable.”
“Everything, I mean everything, will be done to find the perpetrators of this despicable crime,” added justice minister Eric Dupond-Moretti.
“These are people for whom life weighs nothing. They will be arrested, they will be judged, and they will be punished according to the crime they committed.”
World
Georgia: Protesters and riot police face off outside Tbilisi parliament after divisive ‘foreign agents’ bill passes
Protesters have smashed barriers at Georgia’s parliament after it approved a divisive “foreign agents” bill.
Riot police used tear gas and sprayed crowds with water cannon as they entered the grounds of the Georgian parliament in the capital Tbilisi.
Sky’s international affairs editor Dominic Waghorn, who is covering the protests in Tbilisi, said there was a “febrile atmosphere” and a “real sense anger, frustration and massive disappointment” that MPs voted for the bill.
Follow live: Riot police move in on Georgia protesters
Hundreds of law enforcement officers guarded parliament. Pic: Reuters
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Protesters break through parliament barricades
The legislation is seen by some as threatening press and civic freedoms and there are concerns it’s modelled on laws used by President Vladimir Putin in neighbouring Russia.
The proposed law would require media and non-governmental organisations and other non-profit groups to register as “pursuing the interests of a foreign power” if they receive more than 20% of funding from abroad.
Demonstrations have engulfed Georgia for weeks ahead of the bill’s final reading on Tuesday.
Police used a spray to keep back the crowds. Pic: AP
Pic: David Mdzinarishvili/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
Critics also see it as a threat to the country’s aspirations to join the European Union.
The bill is nearly identical to one that the governing Georgian Dream party was pressured to withdraw last year after street protests.
Pic: Reuters
Authorities were seen detaining protesters near the parliament building. Pic: Reuters
Opponents have denounced the bill as “the Russian law” because Moscow uses similar legislation to stigmatise independent news media and organisations critical of the Kremlin.
Read more:
What is the ‘Russian law’ that has Georgians out on the streets?
Georgian opposition politician beaten by hooded thugs
‘Putin’s puppet’: Who is billionaire behind Georgia unrest?
A brawl erupted in the parliament as MPs were debating the bill on Tuesday.
Georgian Dream MP Dimitry Samkharadze was seen charging towards Levan Khabeishvili, the chairman of main opposition party United National Movement, after Mr Khabeishvili accused him of organising mobs to beat up opposition supporters.
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Fighting in Georgia’s parliament
‘Absolutely insane’
Former Georgian president Giorgi Margvelashvili called the bill a “joke” and a “replica” of one introduced by Vladimir Putin to “control his own society” in Russia.
He said the Georgian people would “not fall under that mistake” and that protesters were standing “firm, calm, peaceful and for freedom”.
“We will not let them prevail. We will overcome,” he told Sky News.
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Protesters angry after ‘Russian law’ passes
A protester said it was “absolutely insane that a country like Georgia has accepted this bill as it’s a complete violation for our future”.
The medical student said the bill “makes us more far away from Europe and the rest of the world”, while bringing Georgia closer to the Russian government.
Another protester outside parliament said: “Our government is a Russian government, we don’t want Russia, Russia is never the way, I’m Georgian and therefore I am European.”
One demonstrator said they had been trying to protest “peacefully” but were now “feeling anger, pain and disappointment that again in our history there is a government that goes against our wishes”.
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The president of the European Parliament has shown support for the Georgian people in a post on social media.
“Tbilisi, we hear you! We see you!” Roberta Metsola said.
Alex Scrivener, director of the Democratic Security Institute, said there was time for the law to be turned around.
He told Sky News: “The law passing isn’t the end of the vote.
“The president of Georgia who is aligned with the protesters can veto legislation and that buys us time.”
Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili has said she will veto it but her decision can be overridden by another vote in parliament, controlled by the ruling party and its allies.
Two prison officers have been killed after an attack on a convoy carrying an inmate – with the convict reportedly on the run.
Three other people are seriously injured after the reported “ramming car attack” on a motorway in Incarville in the northwestern France region of Eure.
Footage from the scene shows two hooded men with firearms and a prison van which appears to have been in a collision with a black vehicle.
Several men used two vehicles to target the convoy, a police source has told the French news agency AFP.
The escaped detainee is a man named Mohamed who was convicted of “burglary theft” and is nicknamed “The Fly”, according to Le Parisien.
He had appeared before a judge in Rouen this morning accused of attempted homicide, BFM TV reports.
The attack on the prison van took place while he was being transported back to prison in Evreux, the French broadcaster adds.
The escaped prisoner fled with those who attacked the convoy on Tuesday, Le Parisien reports.
One of the vehicles used to target the convoy was found burned-out in a location which was not specified by the police source who spoke to AFP.
The prison convoy was targeted at a tollbooth on the A154 motorway at about 11am local time, according to reports.
French justice minister Eric Dupond-Moretti posted on X: “A prison convoy was attacked in Eure. Two of our prison officers have died, three are seriously injured.
“All my thoughts are with the victims, their families and their colleagues.”
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