Could Putin actually be arrested?
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin over the alleged forced deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.
Video transcript
- Could Putin actually be arrested? The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin last week over the alleged forced deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia. A report from the Yale humanitarian research lab claimed that more than 6,000 Ukrainian children have been deported to Russian re-education camps since the war broke out.
Since Putin is a sitting head of state, and Russia does not recognize the ICC's jurisdiction, it's highly unlikely that Putin will be surrendered in the near future. However, the arrest warrant signals a major turning point that could ban Putin from traveling internationally and may make senior Russian officials more vulnerable to later prosecution. In the past, ICC warrants have meant future arrests.
The former President of Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic was indicted during the Kosovo war in 1999, though it wasn't until 2001 when the Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic ordered Milosevic's transfer to the Hague. Arrest warrants from the ICC can also impact international economic aid and loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. So now you know.
