Daily Briefing: War in Ukraine
International Criminal Court Issues Arrest Warrant for Putin
The International Criminal Court on Friday issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for war crimes, saying that he bore individual criminal responsibility for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children since Russia’s invasion last year.
Human rights groups hailed the warrant as an important step toward ending impunity for Russian war crimes in Ukraine. The likelihood of a trial while Mr. Putin remains in power appears slim, because the court cannot try defendants in absentia and Russia has said it will not surrender its own officials.
Still, the warrant deepens Mr. Putin’s isolation in the West and could limit his movements overseas.
The court also issued a warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights. She has been the public face of a Kremlin-sponsored program in which Ukrainian children and teenagers have been taken to Russia.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry quickly dismissed the warrants, noting that it is not a party to the court.
The court said in a statement “that there are reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect bears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
The I.C.C. does not recognize immunity for heads of state in cases involving war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.
The Kremlin has denied accusations of war crimes, but has not been secretive about the transfers of Ukrainian children to Russia, depicting them as adoptions of abandoned children and promoting the program as a patriotic and humanitarian effort.
“This is a big day for the many victims of crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine since 2014,” said Balkees Jarrah, the associate director for international justice at Human Rights Watch. “With these arrest warrants, the I.C.C. 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.”
Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, said the announcement had “no meaning for our country, including from a legal point of view.”
“Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and bears no obligations under it,” she said. “Russia is not cooperating with this body,” calling any efforts by the I.C.C. to make arrests “legally null and void for us.”
Ukrainian officials said the decision in effect branded Russia a criminal government and made the world a much smaller place for Mr. Putin. If the Russian leader travels to a state that is party to the I.C.C., that country must arrest him, according to its obligations under international law.
“This is just the beginning,” Andriy Yermak, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, said in a statement.
But the court’s limitations are well known — although it can indict sitting heads of state, it has no power to arrest them or bring them to trial, instead relying on other leaders and governments to act as its sheriffs around the world. This has been most prominently illustrated by the case of Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was indicted by the court but has been not been arrested in other countries where he has traveled.
A New York Times investigation published in October identified several Ukrainian children who had been taken away under Russia’s systematic resettlement efforts. They described a wrenching process of coercion, deception and force, and upon arrival in Russia or Russian-occupied territories, are often placed in homes to become Russian citizens and subjected to re-education efforts. Russia has defended the transfers on humanitarian grounds.
On Thursday, a United Nations commission of inquiry said that Russia’s transfer of children and other civilians from Ukraine to Russia may amount to a war crime, observing that none of the cases they investigated were justified under international law. Ukraine has reported the transfer of 16,221 children to Russia, but the commission said it had not been able to verify the number.
The I.C.C.’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, has said the illegal transfers of children were a priority for his investigators. “Children cannot be treated as the spoils of war,” he said after visiting a children’s home in southern Ukraine this month that he said had been emptied as a result of alleged deportations.
Valerie Hopkins and Marc Santora contributed reporting.
Video Footage Appears to Contradict Russian Claims That Jet Did Not Collide With US Drone
(CNSNews.com) – Declassified video footage released by U.S. European Command shows an incident over the Black Sea on Tuesday, when a U.S. Air Force drone was downed after being intercepted by two Russian fighter jets, one of which evidently collided with it, damaging its propeller.
The clip appears to contradict claims by the Russian defense ministry, echoed by the Kremlin and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov, that the Su-27 fighter did not make physical contact with the drone.
“The video is pretty darn conclusive about what happened and it absolutely just decimates the Russian lie,” National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby told reporters in a virtual briefing on Thursday.
EUCOM says the clip was edited for length, but that it shows the unfolding events in sequential order.
The clip, according to a summary provided by EUCOM, shows a Russian Su-27 fighter approaching the MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle from the rear, beginning to dump fuel as it passes.
The drone’s video transmission is briefly interrupted but the propeller can be seen operating normally, with no visible damage.
A Russian jet then approaches again, once again releasing fuel as it draws close to the UAV. At that point the camera feed is lost – the point at which EUCOM said the collision occurred.
When the camera feed returns to working order, one of the props of the MQ-9’s propeller is seen to be buckled.
EUCOM reported on Tuesday that operators were forced to pilot the drone down into the sea as a result of the damage.
The Pentagon says the incident took place in international airspace, over international waters.
Russia, in addition to denying that a collision occurred, says that it had informed the international community ahead of its invasion of Ukraine last February that it was temporarily restricting airspace in the area.
(The Russian defense ministry said the drone “violat[ed] the borders of the area covered by the temporary regime for the airspace use established for the purposes of the special military operation and brought to the notice of all users of international airspace and published in accordance with international norms.”)
According to Kirby, the U.S. has been flying in that airspace consistently since the invasion began.
Asked at a briefing Thursday if the U.S. military has any clearer idea yet as to whether the collision was deliberate, Pentagon press secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder said that remains unknown.
“I’ll tell you what we know and what we don’t know: We do know that this aggressive behavior was intentional by – on the part of the [Russian] pilots,” he said.
“Whether or not they – they hit the drone on purpose we don’t know. But it clearly demonstrates either poor airmanship or reckless behavior, because just from an airman standpoint, why would you hit another aircraft with your aircraft in the sky?” Ryder asked.
“And so, again – reckless, dangerous, unsafe, unprofessional behavior, which is why, again, we have called on the Russians to conduct their operations safely and professionally.”
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