The International Criminal Court, or ICC, has issued an arrest warrant for Russian president Vladimir Putin on charges of war crimes. The charges stem from the forced evacuations and kidnappings of Ukrainian children to Russian territory to have them absorbed into Russia and to depopulate occupied Ukrainian territory of Ukrainians.
Putin “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
So what does this mean? Unfortunately, not much.
Russia is not a member of the ICC and doesn’t recognize its authority. For that matter, neither does the United States, so that’s one problem. Another is the fact that the ICC has no means of enforcing the warrant, having no “police” force of its own to make such an arrest, instead relying on member nations to do that part. Fat chance of that.
The only way Putin appears before the ICC is if Russia loses the war in Ukraine badly and he’s overthrown. And even then, if he was even still alive, I don’t see the Russians coughing him up. Not their style. Or rather, if they had style, it wouldn’t be this.
What the Russians are doing with Ukrainian children is naked genocide. They’ve done it before, in exactly the same area and to the same people, most notably in the 1930’s during what’s known as The Holodomor, where millions of Ukrainians were either starved to death, arrested and sent to work gulags in Siberia, or kidnapped and exported as is happening now.
Russia is not a very nice country. It never has been. It’s not in the Russian DNA.
Putin will only face justice for these crimes when he dies, whether through old age or at the hand of others. He has, however, taken his last trip to anywhere in Europe or anywhere else in the free world, as he could be conceivably scooped-up while out of Russia. But he ain’t leaving Russia unless he has to because the risk of a coup in his absence is too high. If he does travel, it’ll be to places like Belorussia, China, Iran, and North Korea, maybe Syria.
Some nice, well-rounded company those Russians keep.
Liars, murderers, war criminals, genocide artists, and thieves.
NEWSMAGRENFREW 