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ICC Issues Arrest Warrant For Putin
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has taken the unprecedented step of issuing arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.
The warrants are related to allegations of war crimes committed by Russia, including the forced taking of Ukrainian children.
The court said in a news release on Friday the two are “allegedly 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 move by the Hague’s criminal court has marked a significant step by requesting the arrest of a sitting world leader, though analysts admit that the chances of actually arresting President Putin are slim.
However, officials in Moscow were quick to point out that Russia has never signed on as a party to the ICC and have therefore dismissed the charges outright.
“The very question itself is outrageous and unacceptable,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “Russia, like a number of other states, does not recognize the jurisdiction of this court, and therefore any of its decisions are insignificant for the Russian Federation from a legal viewpoint.”
Andriy Kostin, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General, has hailed the criminal court’s decision as “historic.”
Despite Ukraine not being a party to the ICC, Kostin emphasized that the government has cooperated with the court on criminal investigations within its territory.
He also disclosed that his office provided the ICC with over 1,000 pages of documents regarding the alleged forcible deportation of children to Russia.
Last month, a report by Yale University researchers and the U.S. State Department alleged that the Russian government is operating a systematic network of custody centers holding thousands of Ukrainian children.
While Russian officials have acknowledged the arrival of Ukrainian children in the country, they have claimed that the centers are part of a large humanitarian program designed to care for abandoned or war-traumatized orphans.
ICC President Piotr Hofmanski said the judges decided to make these warrants public to try to deter further crimes.
“It is forbidden by international law for occupying powers to transfer civilians from the territories where they live to other territories,” he said. “Children enjoy special protection under the Geneva Convention.”
“I hoped (this would happen), but I didn’t know it would be this quick,” said Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab.
“This is a stunning move by the court, which has moved right to the top of the Russian state,” said David Bosco, author of Rough Justice: The International Criminal Court in a World of Power Politics.
However, Bosco cautioned, “The arrest warrant won’t have immediate implications because no trial can move forward without Putin being in custody and there’s no chance of that happening in the near future.”
While the possibility of trying Putin remains a difficult task, human rights advocates have welcomed the news as a major step forward.
“This is a big day for the many victims of crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine since 2014,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement. “With these arrest warrants, the ICC has made Putin a wanted man and taken its first step to end the impunity that has emboldened perpetrators in Russia’s war against Ukraine for far too long.”
Amnesty International has called on countries to deny safe haven for Putin and Lvova-Belova by arresting them and handing them over to the ICC.
The organization also predicted that further arrest warrants may be issued for Russian leaders as the investigations into war crimes in Ukraine continue to develop.
Despite Russia’s vehement rejection of allegations of war crimes committed by its forces in Ukraine, the country has made little secret of its relocation of Ukrainian children to Russia.
The Russian government has presented the move as a noble humanitarian effort, while critics have raised concerns about the conditions in which the children are being kept.
In February, President Putin hosted a meeting at the Kremlin with Lvova-Belova, the children’s rights commissioner, during which they openly discussed Russian adoption programs for Ukrainian children in occupied territories of Ukraine, including Lvova-Belova’s own teenage son.
A transcript of the conversation is posted on the Kremlin’s website.
“You also adopted a child from Mariupol, is that right?” asked Putin.
“Yes, Vladimir Vladimirovich,” Lvova-Belova responded, using the Russian leader’s patronymic. “Thanks to you.”
Ukraine’s decision to halt adoptions after Russia’s invasion of the country is a significant admission. International children’s rights groups have argued that countries have a legal obligation under international law to prohibit adoptions of Ukrainian children during wartime.
The President of the African School of Governance, Kingsley Chiedu Moghalu has admonished state actors against resorting to brutal force in the bid to muscle out separatist agitators.
In the aftermath of Mazi Simon Ekpa, the Finland based Biafran nationalist agitator being caught in legal web and the Nigerian government moving swiftly to seek his repatriation, the former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has cautioned that ‘We either fix our problems, or our problems will eventually “fix” us. No alternative to a renegotiated union.’
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The political economist, while expressing his hope in Nigeria, made it clear that “hope is not a strategy”.
He bared his mind in a series of posts on his verified handle on micro-blogging site, X on Friday.
Moghalu wrote, “Despite sustained contemporary difficulties, I am hopeful about Nigeria. But hope is not a strategy. We need to improve state capacity for effective governance.
“We either fix our problems, or our problems will eventually “fix” us. No alternative to a renegotiated union.
“We must learn to be honest with ourselves and address the root causes of our problems. Why ignore them, when the problem is actually quite solvable? The problem with continuing with this approach is that when the danger crystallizes, those who thought they were benefiting from
Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar has criticized the federal government’s plan to secure an additional N1.7 trillion loan through Eurobonds to cover a shortfall in the 2024 budget, describing the borrowing as unsustainable and harmful to Nigeria’s economy.
In a statement shared on Thursday via his X (formerly Twitter) handle, Atiku accused the Bola Tinubu-led administration of burdening Nigerians with debt while failing to provide clear answers about the country’s fiscal challenges.
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He also faulted the National Assembly for enabling what he called a “voracious appetite” for loans.
The former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate expressed alarm over a recent World Bank report ranking Nigeria as the third most indebted country to the International Development Association (IDA), calling the development troubling.
“The recent report released by the World Bank, showing Nigeria as the third most indebted country to the International Development Association (IDA), is very concerning,” Atiku stated.
He raised further concerns about the government’s decision to benchmark the proposed loan at an exchange rate of 1 USD to N800, despite the Central Bank of Nigeria’s official rate being over N1,600.
“What makes this particular loan proposal even more concerning is that it is benchmarked at the exchange rate of 1 USD to N800, whereas the current exchange rate from the Central Bank of Nigeria stands at over N1,600 to 1 USD,” he said.
Atiku questioned the need for additional borrowing, given the government’s earlier claims of record-high revenue collection.
“In July this year, Tinubu boasted that the FIRS and Customs under his watch had collected all-time high revenues to finance the budget. Why are they still borrowing?” he said
He accused the government of a lack of transparency, describing the borrowing spree as detrimental to Nigerians already struggling under economic hardship.
“There is something that they are not telling Nigerians, even as they are being crushed by a combination of their failed trial-and-error policies and loan rackets.”
Atiku also referenced a report by BudgIT, a budget monitoring group, which criticized the 2024 budget for its inefficiencies.
He alleged that corruption, rather than infrastructure or development needs, was driving the government’s borrowing decisions.
“These loans are powered by corruption and not for infrastructure and development needs. This voracious appetite for humongous loans is deeply concerning,” he said.
Reflecting on Nigeria’s financial history, Atiku lamented the return to significant foreign indebtedness just years after former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration cleared the country’s debt.
“It is agonizing to see that just a few years after the Obasanjo administration took us out of foreign indebtedness, we are today back at the top spot in the same conundrum,” he stated.
He called for a more cautious approach to borrowing, urging the government to prioritize fiscal responsibility and transparency to avoid worsening Nigeria’s economic challenges.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) has taken a historic step, issuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
The charges include crimes against humanity and war crimes allegedly committed during Israel’s recent assault on Gaza.
In a detailed statement, the ICC accused the Israeli leaders of “intentionally and knowingly depriving the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity.”
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The ICC’s move marks a significant escalation in international scrutiny of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Netanyahu and Gallant are alleged to have orchestrated policies that caused severe harm to the civilian population in Gaza, leading to widespread condemnation from human rights organizations.
Alongside the charges against Israeli officials, the ICC also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif. Deif has long been a central figure in Hamas’s military operations. Israel’s military claims to have killed him in a July airstrike, although this has not been independently verified.
The warrants highlight growing calls for accountability amid the ongoing conflict in the region. The ICC’s actions are likely to provoke heated debate and may complicate diplomatic efforts aimed at resolving the crisis.
With the warrants issued, global attention now turns to how the international community will respond and whether any practical steps will be taken to enforce them.
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