Vladimir Putin arrives in Mongolia. Ukrainian MFA: this is a heavy blow to the international criminal law system

President Russia Vladimir Putin arrived on Monday for a visit to Mongolia. The non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called for his detention. Putin is wanted by International Criminal Court (ICT) for the illegal deportation of children from occupied Ukraine to Russia. Visiting Mongolia, for the first time since the ICC issued an arrest warrant, he is a guest of a country that has ratified the Rome Statute, which is the basis for the operation of the tribunal.

“Mongolia would be violating its international obligations as a member of the ICC if it allowed (Putin) to visit and did not arrest him,” Maria Elena Vignoli, a lawyer at HRW, said earlier on Monday.

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Putin has been wanted by the ICC since March 2023, when judges issued arrest warrants for him and Russian children’s rights advocate Maria Lvova-Belova for war crimes of illegally deporting children from occupied Ukraine to Russia. Mongolia joined the ICC in 2003. Under its founding treaty, it is required to cooperate with the tribunal, including arresting and extraditing suspects who enter its territory.

In August 2023, Putin was scheduled to attend the annual BRICS leaders' summit in Johannesburg, but after pressure from civil society and a court decision South Africa confirming the state's obligation to execute the arrest warrant issued by the ICC, his visit was finally cancelled.

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“When Putin was planning to attend the BRICS summit, (…) South Africa was faced with the choice that Mongolia now faces, but made it clear that it recognized its obligations,” (…) and Putin “ultimately stayed home,” Vignoli said. “The Mongolian authorities now have a chance to demonstrate in concrete terms their commitment to bringing justice for international crimes by denying Putin entry or arresting him if he does enter the country,” she said earlier.

Putin was not detained in Mongolia, however. A recording released by Reuters shows him greeting local officials at the airport.

Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Heorhiy Tykhiy said that Mongolia's failure to detain Putin was a “heavy blow” to the International Criminal Court and the criminal justice system.

“Mongolia allowed an accused criminal to evade justice, thus sharing the responsibility for war crimes,” he wrote on Telegram. He said Ukraine would work with its allies to ensure that Mongolia faced the consequences of its stance.

In addition to the forced deportation of Ukrainian civilians to Russia, including children, Human Rights Watch has documented numerous other actions by Russian forces since their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 that should be investigated as potential war crimes, Radio Free Europe reported. They include unlawful attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, attacks using unauthorized weapons such as cluster munitions, and arbitrary detention, torture, and summary executions of civilians and Ukrainian servicemen who attempted to surrender.

The court's investigations have so far led to the issuance of arrest warrants for six people on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.