The international community must ensure that all those involved in the forced deportation of Ukrainian children to Russian Federation territory are brought to justice, said ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan.
An arrest warrant was also issued for Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian Federation’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights. The Pre-Trial Chamber of Court II cited reasonable grounds for believing that Putin and Lviv-Belova bear criminal responsibility for the illegal deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, which violates the articles of the Rome Statute.
At the time of the deportations, the children were protected by the Fourth Geneva Convention. The Kremlin is outraged by the ICC’s actions and has called the decision null and void. Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the decision historic and noted that Ukrainian law enforcement officers recorded 16,000 cases of forced deportation of Ukrainian children, but the actual numbers may be higher.