Putin’s ‘child snatcher’ and other fugitives wanted by International Criminal Court
Russia has hit back after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, which accuses him of war crimes for his alleged involvement in child abductions from Ukraine.
The ICC said the president is allegedly responsible for the “unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of children from the territory of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”.
It also issued a warrant for the arrest of Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, his commissioner for children’s rights, on similar allegations.
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War crimes include torture, mutilation, corporal punishment, hostage taking and acts of terrorism. The category also covers violations of human dignity such as rape and forced prostitution, looting and execution without trial.
Crimes against humanity are acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, such as murder, deportation, torture and rape.
So what do we know about Ms Lvova-Belova and other fugitives who are facing ICC arrest warrants?
Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova
Vladimir Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova pictured meeting last month
Lvova-Belova was appointed by Putin as his children’s rights commissioner in October 2021.
British and Ukrainian officials have accused Lvova-Belova of the forcible deportation and adoption of children from Ukraine during the Russian invasion which began in February 2022.
Lvova-Belova has been sanctioned by the US, Europe, the UK, Canada and Australia.
She claims to be the “saviour” of Ukrainian children caught up in Russia’s so-called “special military operation” but her passionate rhetoric allegedly conceals a sinister plan to deport Ukrainian kids from territories occupied by Russian invading forces.
A recent US report said Russia has held at least 6,000 Ukrainian children in sites in Russian-held Crimea and Russia whose primary purpose appears to be political re-education.
Last month on television, Lvova-Belova thanked Putin for being able to “adopt” a 15-year-old boy from Mariupol, the southeastern Ukrainian city that was destroyed and occupied by Russian forces.
A column of Russian armoured vehicles seen on their way to the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali in August 2008
Lvova-Belova was already the mother and guardian of 22 mostly adopted children, according to reports.
She is also a member of the governing body of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, the largest party in the Russian parliament.
Mikhail Mayramovich Mindzaev
The Russian allegedly committed war crimes during the August 2008 conflict between Georgia and Russia over South Ossetia, a breakaway region of Georgia that has very close ties with Moscow.
The war cost hundreds of lives on both sides and forcibly displaced tens of thousands of civilians.
Human Rights Watch found that after Georgian forces withdrew from South Ossetia on 10 August, the Russian-backed South Ossetian forces deliberately destroyed ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia that had been administered by the Georgian government.
It said the forces looted, beat, threatened, and unlawfully detained numerous ethnic Georgian civilians, and killed several, on the basis of the residents’ ethnicity and political affiliations.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Mindzaev in June 2022. It said the ex-Russian police officer was the minister of internal affairs of the de facto South Ossetian administration from 2005 until 2008.
He was charged with war crimes of unlawful confinement, torture and inhuman treatment, outrages upon personal dignity, hostage taking, and unlawful transfer of civilians.
These were allegedly committed between 8 and 27 August 2008 during the conflict. He is still at large.
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi
Saif al-Islam Gaddafi is a Libyan political figure and second son of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
In 2011, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Saif on two counts of crimes against humanity, which were murder and persecution, allegedly committed in Libya that year.
He was captured by a militia group in 2011 in Libya, as he tried to flee for Niger, but was released from prison in 2017 and is still at large.
In 2021, he registered to run for president, but the election authority rejected his bid.
Joseph Kony
An arrest warrant was issued in July 2005 for the Ugandan rebel who was allegedly commander-in-chief of militia group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).
His decades-old war kept much of north Uganda trapped in a nightmare of violence, hunger and fear of night-time raids by the LRA.
Child soldiers and their commanders, many barely in their teens, carried out attacks on unarmed villagers, allegedly under Kony’s orders.
Several attempts to capture him by UN and Ugandan forces over the years have failed and he remains on the run.
He is accused of 12 counts of crimes against humanity, which included murder, enslavement, sexual enslavement, rape, and inhumane acts of inflicting serious bodily injury and suffering.
The ICC also accused Kony of 21 counts of war crimes, including murder, cruel treatment of civilians, intentionally directing an attack against a civilian population, pillaging, inducing rape, and forced enlistment of children – these were allegedly committed after 1 July 2002.
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The Belgian government has said it will officially recognise the State of Palestine at the UN General Assembly this month.
The country’s foreign minister, Maxime Prevot, announced it will join the UK, France, Canada, and Australia in recognising a Palestinian state.
Belgium will also introduce “firm sanctions” against the Israeli government, he said, including a ban on imports from West Bank settlements and possible judicial prosecutions.
The Israeli foreign ministry and its Belgian embassy have not yet commented on the announcement.
However, its foreign ministry previously said the UK’s plan to recognise Palestine “constitutes a reward for Hamas”.
Read more: What does recognising a Palestinian state mean?
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Would a two-state solution work?
Sir Keir Starmer announced in July that the UK would recognise a Palestinian state unless Israel meets certain conditions, those being:
• Israel takes substantive steps to end the “appalling situation in Gaza“
• Israel agrees to a ceasefire
• Israel commits to a long-term sustainable peace – reviving the prospect of a two-state solution
• Israel must allow the UN to restart the supply of aid
• There must be no annexations in the West Bank
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PM on recognising Palestine as a state
In response, the Israeli foreign ministry said: “The shift in the British government’s position at this time, following the French move and internal political pressures, constitutes a reward for Hamas and harms efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza and a framework for the release of hostages.”
The UN General Assembly session in New York will begin on 9 September. Ireland, Spain, and Norway all officially recognised a Palestinian state last year.
Out of the 193 United Nations member states, 147 already recognise Palestine as a state as of March 2025.
Earlier this month, Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich announced plans to build a new settlement in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which he said would “bury” the idea of a Palestinian state.
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Israeli minister’s plan to ‘bury idea of Palestinian state’
It comes after US secretary of state Marco Rubio revoked the visas of 81 delegates from the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) – blocking them from attending the general assembly.
Under a 1947 UN agreement, the US is generally required to allow access for foreign diplomats to the UN in New York.
But Washington has said it can deny visas for security, extremism and foreign policy reasons.
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The number of Palestinians killed in Gaza is now more than 63,000, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry. Its figures do not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
It added that nine more people, including three children, died of malnutrition and starvation over Monday, raising deaths from such causes to at least 348, including 127 children.
The war in Gaza was triggered when Hamas militants stormed into southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing around 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage.
Earthquakes represent a constant danger in Afghanistan – a country which sits across three geological fault lines.
This most recent rupture near the city of Jalalabad – leaving more than 800 people dead – represents the third major quake in the past four years.
But the people of this impoverished nation are vulnerable in a number of ways.
The aftermath of the quake in Mazar Dara, Kunar province, Afghanistan. Pic: AP
The impact of foreign aid cuts
Since the Taliban took control in 2021, the international community has withdrawn much of the financial support which formed the bulk of government spending in Afghanistan.
Even humanitarian aid, which generally bypasses government institutions, has shrunk substantially – from $3.8bn (£2.8bn) in 2022 to $767m (£566.6m) this year.
The US government, through its international development arm USAID, provided 45% of all assistance granted to Afghanistan last year – but the Trump administration has slashed those sums.
The UK, along with France, Germany, Sweden, and others have also made deep cuts to humanitarian aid.
As a consequence, hundreds of hospitals and local health clinics in the country have been shut this year and related medical posts have been lost.
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Afghan quake kills 800 people
This crisis comes as the country tries to absorb millions of people who fled when the Taliban took power. More than two million have come back this year, with Pakistan and Iran taking measures to force their return.
On arrival, they discover a country where more than half the population requires urgent humanitarian assistance, according to the UN – with millions suffering from acute food insecurity.
Large parts of northern Afghanistan have been stricken with the long-term drought.
A catastrophe compounded in a nation that ranks as one of the poorest – and most desperate – on Earth.
More than 1,000 people are feared dead after a landslide in a village in western Sudan, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM) has said.
The rebel group said only one survivor was found, and that the village in the Marrah Mountains area, in the Darfur region, was destroyed.
SLM leader Abdelwahid Mohamed Nour said in a statement that the landslide struck on Sunday, 31 August, after days of heavy rainfall.
He appealed to the United Nations and international aid agencies for help in recovering the bodies.
The SLM controls the area located in the Darfur region in western Sudan.
Fleeing the civil war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), residents had sought shelter in the Marrah Mountains area, where food and medication are insufficient.
Pic: Sudan Liberation Movement/Army
In January, the US determined that the RSF and its militias were committing genocide in Sudan.
The RSF rejected the claim and said: “America previously punished the great African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela, which was wrong.”
The RSF has been fighting Sudan’s army for territorial control of the country since war erupted in the capital, Khartoum, in April 2023.
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The ensuing devastation has been described as the worst humanitarian crisis ever recorded – with over 11 million people forced out of their homes, tens of thousands dead, and 30 million in need of humanitarian assistance.
Minni Minnawi, leader of a faction of the group, said in March last year that 1,500 troops would support the Sudanese army in the civil war against the RSF, according to the Sudan Tribune.
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