The International Criminal Court Issues Arrest Warrant For Vladimir Putin For Abducting Children, War Crimes | Eastern NC Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Ryan Saavedra.

    The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant on Friday for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian official Maria Lvova-Belova for alleged war crimes committed during Russia's war in Ukraine.

    Putin "is 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 court said in a statement.

    The court said there are "reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes, (i) for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others (article 25(3)(a) of the Rome Statute), and (ii) for his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts, or allowed for their commission, and who were under his effective authority and control, pursuant to superior responsibility (article 28(b) of the Rome Statute)."

    While charges have been filed, it is unlikely that a trial at The Hague will happen since Russia is not a member of the ICC and the court does not proceed with trials if the defendant is not present, according to CNN.

    In order for a trial to take place, Russia would either have to hand over Putin, which is not likely to happen, or officials would have to wait for Putin to leave Russia and hope they can nab him somewhere else, which is also not likely to happen.

    The other official charged, Lvova-Belova, is Commissioner for Children's Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation.

    According to the ICC, Lvova-Belova "is 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 (under articles 8(2)(a)(vii) and 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute)."

    "There are reasonable grounds to believe that Ms Lvova-Belova bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes, for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others (article 25(3)(a) of the Rome Statute)," the statement added.