On Tuesday, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, accused by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of war crimes in Ukraine with President Vladimir Putin, claimed the ICC’s claims were untrue and vague.
On March 17, the Hague-based ICC issued arrest warrants for Putin and Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian commissioner for children’s rights, for the war crime of forcibly deporting children from Ukraine seized by Russian forces.
The ICC said that hundreds of children were removed from orphanages and children’s homes in Russia-controlled Ukraine. The ICC stated Russia adopted several of the youngsters.
Lvova-Belova told a Moscow press conference that the Commission always sought parents’ approval and acted in the child’s best interests.
She offered to address any family issues.
“It is unclear to the presidential commissioner for children’s rights what the International Criminal Court’s claims particularly consist of and what they are based on,” her Commission said before the news conference.
“The ICC’s official statement’s usage of ‘unlawful expulsion of population (children)’ bewilders,” it stated.
The ICC, which Russia does not recognize, has not sent any case materials either.
The Commission stated Donetsk and Luhansk, two Ukrainian territories claimed and largely controlled by Russia, had urged Moscow to absorb people, including orphans and children without parents.
The Kremlin calls the ICC arrest warrant extremely biased but worthless for Russia. Russian leaders claim the West has disregarded Ukrainian war crimes.
Putin loyalists have called the ICC, which Russia, China, and the US do not recognize, a “legal nonentity” that has never accomplished anything.
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