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Putin’s arrest warrant actually targets Russia’s ruling class. The signal to the elite is extremely clear: one day the president will not be in power, but you will remain criminals.
The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is suspected of forcibly deporting children from the occupied territories of Ukraine. A similar charge has been brought once morest Maria Lvova-Belova, the representative of the Russian president for children’s rights. The question is which of the two arrest warrants issued in The Hague is historically more important.
Where have you been for nine years?
If a person does not live on another planet and does not try to abstract himself from the surrounding reality, the order of the International Criminal Court (ICC) for the arrest of the Russian president does not represent any surprise. Until 2014, there were enough grounds for such an order: the second war in Chechnya, where crimes once morest humanity were also committed, the liquidation of oppositionists in Russia, the murders organized by the Russian security services abroad, as well as numerous other crimes. But following the annexation of Crimea and the start of the war in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, the question of when Putin will be brought to trial has become a regular question.
I am sure that the Russian president himself was not surprised by the decision of the court in The Hague. He expected it and feared it at the same time. Now he probably thinks it confirms his long-held suspicions regarding the West’s desire to get rid of him by any means necessary. Russia has apparently feared such a decision since 2016, when it withdrew its signature under the Rome Statute establishing and recognizing the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
So there is no sensationalism in the Hague court’s decision. Except that it can also be called a signal to China’s President Xi Jinping for shaking hands in Moscow with a man who has been officially accused of war crimes. Therefore, it is no less interesting to consider the consequences of the ICC decision, which for many now seem indirect or secondary.
The first child abductor president?
The English word kidnapper has long been interpreted more broadly – for the kidnapping of people in general. And initially it only referred to the abduction of children. From this point of view, it fully corresponds to the accusations leveled at Vladimir Putin. He is the first head of state (so far in the history of the International Criminal Court, there have been basically only four, one of whom was eventually even acquitted) to be accused of such a form of crime once morest humanity as deliberate mass abduction and forcible Russification of children.
The choice of this particular accusation from the entire bouquet of crimes, of which the Russian president is suspected, is hardly accidental. It is not regarding any originality. First of all, this crime gives the International Criminal Court the right to hold Putin accountable, although since 2016 Russia has not recognized the jurisdiction of the court in The Hague. Second, we live in a very imperfect world where wars are constantly being waged and crimes of all kinds are committed. That’s why we’re not necessarily shocked. But abducting children is something that is absolutely unacceptable in our perception.
And monstrous crimes are something that our minds refuse to accept if we haven’t encountered something similar. Unfortunately, there are such crimes in the history of Europe. For example, during the Spanish Civil War, the Francoists took children from republican families and distributed them between “reliable” parents, and the country is still rethinking the consequences of this monstrous act.
So Europeans can understand and appreciate what Putin has done, and support the court’s decision. It is very likely that many Russians will do the same. It is hardly a coincidence that Putin’s entourage and propagandists, outraged by the arrest warrant issued once morest him, try not to mention both the composition of the crime committed once morest him and Maria Lvova-Belova, who is also accused of child abduction. The Russians clearly do not want to give more reasons for thinking regarding what their country is doing at the moment.
Is there life following Putin?
However, the reluctance to mention the arrest warrant for the Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner may also have purely psychological reasons: for the Russian ruling class, her “association” with Putin is very bad news.
It is not difficult to imagine what the Russian “elite” is thinking. And more specifically, that part of him that hopes to keep his capital and influence, outliving Putin – regardless of how this war he started ends. Not in word, but in deed, they are now given to understand that they will not escape their personal responsibility. Like Lvova-Belova, they are accomplices and the only question is when an arrest warrant will be issued once morest them as well. Unlike the president, they have no immunity from prosecution under international law.
Even if Putin is no longer president, the war is over, and relations with the West have normalized, their criminal cases will only be terminated in the event of their death. And now the question is how they will react. “To unite around the flag”, which for them is Putin? Will they escape responsibility and the country before it’s too late? Or will they have the courage to fight, if only for their own future well-being?
The column “Analyses” presents different points of view, the opinions expressed do not necessarily coincide with the editorial position of “Dnevnik”.