“A historical decision, from which the historical responsibility will startThis is how Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky commented on a telegram on the decision of the International Criminal Court to issue an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin for the “illegal deportation” of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia.
“The head of a terrorist state and another Russian official – he said in a reference to the commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, also hit by an arrest warrant – have become officially suspected of a war crimefor the deportation of Ukrainian children, the illegal transfer of thousands of our children to the territory of a terrorist state, for separating children from their families, depriving them of any possibility of contacting their relatives…”.
This means, underlines Ukrainian Attorney General Andriy Kostin on Facebook “that Putin must be arrested if he leaves Russia. And world leaders will think three times before shaking his hand or sitting at the negotiating table with him. The world has received a signal that the Russian regime is a criminal regime and that its leadership and its acolytes will have to account for it”, remarked the Ukrainian prosecutor.
“The world has changed. The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for the ‘strategist’ Putin. It is a clear signal to the Russian elites of what will happen to them and why it will no longer be ‘as before’. It is the beginning of the end of the Russian Federation in its current form on the international stage. It is a clear legal procedure. Just wait,” said Ukrainian presidential adviser Mychailo Podolyak.
“The wheels of justice have turned,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter. “International criminals will have to answer for stealing children and other international crimes,” he added.