Russian President Putin was assured that he would not be arrested during his visit to Mongolia. The country determines the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), and therefore should execute the warrant for Putinʼs arrest.
Bloomberg writes about it.
Putinʼs September 3 visit to Mongolia will be the first visit by a Russian leader to a member state of the International Criminal Court since the court issued a warrant for his arrest for abducting children from the occupied territories of Ukraine.
When Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was asked whether Mongolia had given assurances that it would not comply with the ICC warrant, he replied: "We donʼt have such a problem."
Bloomberg journalists also cite the opinion of Sergei Markov, a political consultant close to the Kremlin, who notes that before all foreign trips, the entire spectrum of the negotiation format is agreed in advance. And the country to which Putin is going "gives a 100% guarantee that neither Putin nor any of the members of the delegation will be detained."
However, earlier Putin did not dare to make such visits. He missed last yearʼs summit in South Africa of BRICS leaders. Also, Putin did not go to the G20 summit in 2023 in India, even though it is not even a member of the International Criminal Court.
Before Putinʼs trip, it became known that a group of Russian-backed hackers had attacked Mongolian government websites, Googleʼs threat analysis team said. According to her data, hackers attacked Mongolian state resources several times between November 2023 and July 2024. Then the websites of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia and the office of the Cabinet of Ministers were hacked, the resources were infected with malware used to steal the data of website visitors.
Reaction of Ukraine
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine called on Mongolia to execute the mandatory international arrest warrant and hand over Putin to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
"The Ukrainian side hopes that the Government of Mongolia is aware of the fact that Vladimir Putin is a war criminal. A warrant for his arrest on suspicion of illegal forced transfer of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation has been issued by the International Criminal Court, whose jurisdiction is recognized by Mongolia," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.
- On March 17, 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin and Childrenʼs Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova. They are suspected of illegally deporting Ukrainian children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, which is a war crime. Putin and Lvova-Belova should be arrested as official suspects in countries that have ratified the Rome Statute. That is, 123 countries are closed to them.
- After issuing the warrant, Putin visited only Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, China, the DPRK, and Kazakhstan, which did not ratify the statute.