ICC's arrest warrant against Putin for Ukraine war crimes have "no meaning": Russia

According to the ICC, the arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin was issued for war crimes because of his alleged involvement in the abductions of children from Ukraine.

The International Criminal Court (ICC)'s arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes is legally "void" as Kremlin does not recognise the Hague-based court's jurisdiction, Moscow said in a statement on Friday.

"Russia, just like a number of different countries, does not recognise the jurisdiction of this court and so from a legal point of view, the decisions of this court are void," AFP quoted Russia's spokesman Dmitry Peskov as telling reporters. Moscow is not a member of the ICC.

The decisions "have no meaning" for Russia, said Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova. "Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and bears no obligations under it," she said on Telegram.

"Russia does not cooperate with this body and possible 'recipes' for arrest coming from the international court will be legally void as far as we are concerned," she claimed, without referring to the name of the Russian President.

Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev likened the warrant to toilet paper. On his Twitter, he wrote, "The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin. No need to explain WHERE this paper should be used🧻."

The International Criminal Court said on Friday it issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes because of his alleged involvement in the abductions of children from Ukraine, PTI reported.

The court statement said that "there are reasonable grounds to believe that Putin bears individual criminal responsibility" for the child abductions "for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others (and) for his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts.

The court said in a statement that Putin "is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of (children) and that of unlawful transfer of (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation."

It also issued a warrant Friday for the arrest of Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Commissioner for Children's Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, on similar allegations. The move was immediately dismissed by Moscow and welcomed by Ukraine as a major breakthrough.

Its practical implications, though, could well be negligible. Even if the court has court has indicted world leaders before, it was the first time it issued a warrant against one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

The court's president, Piotr Hofmanski, said in a video statement that while the ICC's judges have issued the warrants, it will be up to the international community to enforce them. The court has no police force of its own to enforce warrants. "The ICC is doing its part of work as a court of law," he said.

However, Ukrainian officials were jubilant. "The world changed," said presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak.

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the "wheels of justice are turning," and added that "international criminals will be held accountable for stealing children and other international crimes." Olga Lopatkina, a Ukrainian mother who struggled for months to reclaim her foster children who were deported to an institution ran by Russian loyalists, welcomed the news of the arrest warrant. "Good news!" she said in an exchange of messages with the Associated Press.

"Everyone must be punished for their crimes." Ukraine also is not a member of the international court, but it has granted it jurisdiction over its territory and ICC prosecutor Karim Khan has visited four times since opening an investigation a year ago.

With inputs from agencies