Vladimir Putin has arrived in Mongolia

Leader 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 territories of Ukraine to Russia. By visiting Mongolia, the dictator is a guest of a member state of the Court for the first time since the ICC issued an arrest warrant.

“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 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 court, including arresting and extraditing suspects who enter its territory.

With his visit to Mongolia, Putin is the first time since the ICC issued an arrest warrant for him that he has been a guest of an ICC member state. Putin was due to attend the annual BRICS leaders’ summit in Johannesburg in August 2023, 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 is now facing, but it 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 international crimes to justice by denying Putin entry or arresting him if he enters the country,” she added.

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.