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Russian president Vladimir Putin shall be in Mongolia on Tuesday, making his first go to to a member nation of the Worldwide Prison Court docket the place he’s wished for alleged battle crimes.
It’s unlikely that Mr Putin shall be handcuffed and arrested upon arrival regardless of each ICC member state being obliged to detain individuals in opposition to whom arrest warrants have been issued by the world court docket in The Hague.
Mongolia is subsequently set to turn out to be the primary nation to brazenly defy the ICC warrant in opposition to the Russian chief.
The Kremlin introduced final week that Mr Putin would go to Mongolia to mark the eighty fifth anniversary of the victory of Russian and Mongolian forces in opposition to Imperial Japan at Khalkhin Gol river in 1939.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Mr Putin in March 2023 after accusing him of committing battle crimes by taking lots of of Ukrainian kids from orphanages through the battle.
It accused Mr Putin and Russia’s kids’s rights commissioner Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova of “illegal deportation” of kids “from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation”.
The Kremlin mentioned it had “no worries” about Mr Putin’s impending go to. “Now we have a wonderful rapport with our companions from Mongolia,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov mentioned. “After all, all facets of the president’s go to have been fastidiously ready.”
Mongolia, landlocked between Russia and China, depends on Moscow for imports of oil and pure gasoline. It has lengthy been a detailed ally to Moscow.
The ICC and Ukraine had already pressed Mongolia to arrest Mr Putin on the weekend, and Human Rights Watch put its weight behind these calls on Monday.
“Mongolia could be defying its worldwide obligations as an ICC member if it permits Russian president Vladimir Putin to go to with out arresting him,” mentioned Maria Elena Vignoli, senior worldwide justice counsel at Human Rights Watch.
“Welcoming Putin, an ICC fugitive, wouldn’t solely be an affront to the numerous victims of Russian forces’ crimes, however would additionally undermine the essential precept that nobody, irrespective of how highly effective, is above the legislation.”
Ukraine’s overseas ministry mentioned it hoped Mongolia was “conscious of the truth that Vladimir Putin is a battle legal” and urged it to arrest the Russian chief and hand him over to prosecutors at The Hague.
The ICC doesn’t have any enforcement mechanism and its settlement with member nations exempts them from the duty of finishing up an arrest beneath sure circumstances.
For Mongolia, the sensible penalties of a fall out with Moscow would possible be worse than the implications of upsetting The Hague.
Mongolia receives 95 per cent of its petroleum merchandise from Russia, accounting for 35 per cent of all imports.
The nation’s financial system, closely centered on the export of uncooked supplies reminiscent of coal, copper and gold, relies upon largely on Russian gas for transport to China.
Prior to now 5 years, Russian exports to Mongolia have elevated at a price of 8.85 per cent a yr, from $1.6bn in 2017 to $2.44bn in 2022, in response to the Observatory of Financial Complexity. The exports embrace planes, helicopters and spacecraft.
When Russia banned gas exports from 1 March 2024 it made exceptions for pleasant nations reminiscent of India, China and Mongolia.
Mr Putin final yr averted visiting ICC member nation South Africa for the BRICS summit in Johannesburg.
President Cyril Ramphosa lobbied Moscow for months to maintain Mr Putin from visiting so as to keep away from a diplomatic disaster. He finally introduced the 2 nations had reached a “mutual settlement” that the Russian chief wouldn’t attend a gathering that he’s usually a fixture at.
Mr Putin as a substitute took half within the Johannesburg summit by video hyperlink, launching right into a tirade in opposition to the West.
South Africa thus averted an analogous controversy to when it hosted Sudanese chief Omar al-Bashir in 2015, sparking condemnation for failing to fulfil its obligations to the ICC by not arresting him on a pending arrest warrant.
