President Vladimir Putin has entered Mongolia this week and the government has failed to him by order of the International Criminal Court (ICC) — this has come as a major blow to the ICC's legitimacy.
Putin arrived in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar on a state visit late Monday evening, he was greeted by the Mongolian Minister of Foreign Affairs Battsetseg Batmunkh flanked by an honor guard.
Putin's visit was slated to celebrate the 1939 wwII victory over Japan at the Battle of Khalkhin by Soviet-Mongolian forces.
Putin plans to spend four days in Mongolia meeting with national leaders. This comes as a shock because Putin’s latest trip derives from the fact that Mongolia is a member of the ICC and in March 2023,it issued an arrest warrant for Putin after he was indicted over the alleged involvement in the abduction of Ukrainian children.
Putin has craftily avoided visiting countries that are signatories of the Rome Statute, thus making them subject to ICC jurisdiction, until now.
Russia is not a signatory, along with other nations such as the U.S., China, India and Israel – are not signatories and thus do not answer to the ICC, but any visit to a Rome Statute signatory subjects Putin to arrest.
The Kremlin has dismissed any speculation of Putin facing arrest during the trip, despite Mongolia's obligation to act.
"There are no worries, we have a great dialogue with our friends from Mongolia," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday, according to the Moscow Times. He added that "all aspects of the visit were carefully prepared."
In a recent statement, Ukraine has referred to Putin as a war criminal and stressed that kidnapping children is just "one of the many crimes" that Putin has committed since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022.
the Ukrainian foreign ministry wrote in a post on Telegram, "These individuals are guilty of an aggressive war against Ukraine, atrocities against the Ukrainian people,"
"We call on the Mongolian authorities to execute the mandatory international arrest warrant and hand over Putin to the International Criminal Court in The Hague," the ministry added.
