It is not certain that he will want to organize a stay in Moscow or Saint Petersburg in the coming years, but if he decides to set foot on Russian soil, the president of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Piotr Hofmanski, would face arrest. Russia issued a search warrant targeting the Pole on Monday, adding him to the long list of Western personalities targeted by the Kremlin.
There is little doubt that this is a symbolic measure, a response to the ICC which issued in the spring an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin for his role in the deportation of children to Ukraine.
The Russian president and his children’s officer, Maria Lvova-Belova, are suspected of war crimes for the “illegal deportation” of Ukrainian children following to the numerous reports from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The latter regularly erts that Russian soldiers occupying the Ukrainian regions under their control forcibly take Ukrainian children to Russia where, according to him, they are brainwashed. Accusations rejected by Moscow.
In response, Moscow had also registered ICC prosecutor Karim Khan in Mayon his wanted list.
An accusation that bothers Putin
Although Russia is not a member of the ICC, the Russian president is therefore hampered in his international travel by this threat of arrest. He thus had to give up going to a summit in South Africa last August.
To respond to the numerous sanctions taken by the West against Russian officials and businessmen, the Kremlin has promulgated travel bans in Russia. They target in particular American President Joe Biden, his vice-president Kamala Harris but also more surprising personalities such as Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg or the actor Morgan Freeman.