“If I was told back in 2012 … that I would add Russia’s president to our database of documented war criminals on the basis of an international arrest warrant … I would have thought it was crazy,” Ukrainian journalist and former political prisoner Stanislav Aseyev recently reflected.
Last Friday’s arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his alleged accomplice, Maria Lvova-Belova, are ushering in an era-defining historical moment.
These warrants were issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC), the first and the only international tribunal with global authority to prosecute individuals for three distinct atrocity crimes, defined by the United Nations as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide.
Founded in 2002, the ICC’s legal heritage stretches back to the Paris Peace Conference after World War I. When the idea for an international legal system stalled in 1919, proponents tried again through the League of Nations in 1937. The League of Nations itself did not survive World War II’s darkness, but the nightmarish violence of the Nazi Holocaust deepened convictions about international justice. Ad hoc tribunals, including the famed Nuremberg Trials, prosecuted German and Japanese leaders, before the Cold War shelved plans to make these mechanisms permanent. In the 1990s, genocides in Yugoslavia and Rwanda finally galvanized support for the ICC.
Now legally an international fugitive wanted on war crimes, Vladimir Putin has joined a very short and infamous list. Known for obsessing over his legacy, Friday’s news ensures Putin’s place in history books, just not as he thought. Putin is the first head-of-state of a nuclear power to be issued such an arrest warrant.
Beyond the technicalities of international law, the horrors of the accusations confronting Putin should instill chills around every family dinner table worldwide. Reasonable legal grounds exist to hold Putin criminally responsible for the unlawful “deportation and transfer” of Ukrainian minors — that is, for trafficking thousands of Ukrainian children. As Karim Khan, the ICC prosecutor, declared, “Children can’t be treated as the spoils of war. This type of crime doesn’t need one to be a lawyer; one needs only to be human to know how egregious it is.”
Beyond the brutal intimacy of preying on individual children, the legal and geopolitical ramifications of these arrest warrants are vast.
The ICC currently does not hold jurisdiction over the crime of aggression in Ukraine, an expansive charge aimed at a nation’s most senior levels. As international tribunals are pursued for this crime, last Friday’s arrest warrants signal that Putin himself — not just low-level offenders — will also be prosecuted for individual criminal responsibility for atrocity crimes. The number of individuals and crimes charged are expected to grow significantly.
The concurrent arrest warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova — Russia’s so-named “commissioner for children’s rights” — is just as important. By charging Putin, the ICC displays the political courage to uphold its mandate for accountability at the highest levels of government. By pursuing Lvova-Belova, ICC prosecutors are indicating that lower-level bureaucrats and cabinet officials are equally culpable.
From Russia’s soldiers to its intelligence services to its parliamentarians, who have legalized the forcible adoption of Ukrainian children in Russian homes, all perpetrators should now be looking over their shoulders. At 38 years old, Lvova-Belova faces a lifetime of consequences for her crimes. Most Russians participating in war crimes against Ukrainians will likely outlive their 70-year-old president.
The ICC’s decision to publicly announce these arrest warrants is intended to deter perpetrators, but Putin has already indicated his intent to continue the mass kidnapping. Other perpetrators should note that non-disclosed ICC warrants may be waiting for them in the 123 countries across Europe, Asia, South America, Africa, and beyond, which are obligated by the Rome Statute to arrest them.
While not a party to the ICC, the United States (and other European countries) should reinforce the spirit of international law by sanctioning a wider range of Russian functionaries involved in crimes against Ukrainians. Western work, vacations, and education for their children must be denied to the thousands of Russian warfighters, civil servants, and others involved in these monstrous atrocities.
World leaders now face a crossroads.
With Russia scheduled to take on the United Nations Security Council chair on April 1, the world must squarely face the reality of its premier international body being led by someone with an outstanding warrant for war crimes.
International businesses remaining in Russia should face pointed questions about their financial support — through tax payments — of an international fugitive wanted on war crimes charges against vulnerable children, as should countries and businesses that assist Russia in skirting sanctions.
The specific crimes identified by the ICC directly violate the United Nations Genocide Convention, prohibiting exactly the type of forcible transfer of children now charged against Putin and Lvova-Belova.
Russia quite clearly is pursuing a genocidal war against Ukraine, and the ICC arrest warrants should spur the world to action. Western policymakers must provide Ukrainians with increased military capabilities to defend themselves. Political, economic, and military support must increase from the hundreds of countries who have legally obligated themselves through the UN Genocide Convention to prevent and punish the specific crimes that the ICC has now formally accused Russia’s leaders of masterminding.
Kristina Hook is a Ukraine-Russia specialist and assistant professor of conflict management at Kennesaw State University’s School of Conflict Management, Peacebuilding, and Development. She is also a former Fulbright scholar to Ukraine.