What would happen if Vladimir Putin was arrested was a topic that was commented on by experts.
It is unclear whether Putin will ever be fully responsible for overseeing the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children. However, if he enters the territory of the member states of the ICC, they are obliged by law to execute arrest warrants for Putin and the Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. However, that may not be the only risk for Putin following an arrest warrant, as he also faces the possibility that be disgraced and humiliated or even killed by the enemy.
All ICC states—including all European Union members, most African states, all Latin and South American states except Cuba and Nicaragua, and even Tajikistan—are legally bound to arrest Putinif he ever sets foot on their territory, noted the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). The ICC lacks its own police to enforce its arrest warrants and depends on its 123 member states to assist in the arrest of individuals by national law enforcement authorities – something that has not always happened in the past. Former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir has two ICC arrest warrants from 2009 and 2010. Although he has since visited member countries of the ICC, he has not been arrested and is still at large.
While several NATO member states, including Germany and the US, have doubled down on their commitment to comply with the ICC’s arrest warrant for Putin, Hungary, which is also a member of the 30-member military alliance, has announced that it will not arrest the Russian president. Gergely Gulias, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s chief of staff, said that although his country is a signatory to the Rome Statute, the treaty that created the ICC and ratified it in 2001, there are no grounds for arresting Putin in Hungarian law.
That statement followed after former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned that any attempt to arrest Putin on the orders of the ICC would constitute a declaration of war against Russia. It is also increasingly debated whether it should Putin could be arrested this August during an expected trip to the BRICS summit (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) this August in South Africa, which is also required to execute the order.
Putin’s enemies from within?
Vlad Mikhnenko, an expert on the post-communist transformation of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union at the University of Oxford, told Newsweek that he believed that Putin could be arrested and sent to court in The Hague if he is removed from power, or if Russian elites set up his arrest to oust him from power.
“Because the Kremlin, number one, is paranoid about Putin’s security and number two, believes that the US runs the world, Putin will not set foot on the territory of an ICC member state to avoid any inconvenience”, Mikhnenko said, adding that Putin probably won’t risk going to Dushanbe, Tajikistan or South Africa. And if Putin risks visiting the member countries of the ICC and “gets into trouble”, it could result in an arrest, Mikhnenko said.
Boris Bondarev, a former Russian diplomat who publicly resigned over the invasion of Ukraine last year, also said last month that Putin may be deposed and may eventually be forced to step down if he loses the war against Ukraine.
“Putin’s Ordinary Dictator”
“Putin can be replaced. He is not a superhero. He does not have any superpowers. He is just an ordinary dictator,” Bondarev said. Mikhnenko compared him to Slobodan Milošević, who was indicted in 1999 by the predecessor of the ICC, the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia. “After losing power at home, the new Serbian leader — in order to re-establish relations with the West — handed over Milosevic to the Hague Tribunal. I think post-Putin leaders could pull the same trick to re-establish a relationship with the West. However, in this scenario, Putin may not even make it to The Hague. Given Putin’s extensive connections across Europe and what he could potentially tell judges about corruption and shady dealings between Moscow and major Western capitals, there will be plenty of incentive to silence him before The Hague,” Mikhnenko said.
In addition to the risk of Putin being betrayed by the Russian elite, he could face problems if he visits other countries, even if they are friendly to the Russian regime and do not seek his arrest as in the case of Milosevic.
Miknenko said the ICC arrest warrant made Putin”extremely vulnerable” and “humiliated” in Russia itself. “That’s why Kremlin TV has been very quiet about this case. They don’t want ordinary Russians to hear Putin, arrest, warrant, in one sentence, because it destroys his ‘bad boy’ charisma, and makes him look like a common criminal, a despot from Third world,” he added.
How would Russia react?
Threats by Medvedev, who is the deputy president of the Russian Security Council, due to the possible arrest of Putin caused alarm. He said that if the German authorities tried to arrest the Russian president on the orders of the ICC, it would be a declaration of war. Germany is one of NATO’s 30 members, along with the US, so Medvedev’s warning suggests that it would any arrest would bring the military alliance to war with Russia, which would trigger World War III.
When contacted by Newsweek, the ICC said: “The court does not comment on alleged political statements”. Rabea Bonighausen, a spokeswoman for the German Federal Ministry of Justice, said that “Germany, like all member states of the ICC, is obliged to cooperate with the ICC ( and therefore to execute an arrest warrant) under Article 86 of the Rome Statute and Section 2, Law on Cooperation with the International Criminal Court”.
Olga Lautman, non-resident senior fellow at CEPA and senior researcher at the Institute for European Integrity, noted that Medvedev and other Kremlin officials and propagandists have made several threats to ICC member states if they comply with the arrest warrant for Putin, but this would probably turn out to be unfounded. “In the hypothetical case that Putin is arrested by a member of the International Criminal Court, I don’t believe that Russia would do anything“she said, adding that it may depend on the member state and what power Russia has over it.
“When it comes to Germany or any NATO country, “Russia would not take any action because it fully understands that it is not ready for a direct confrontation with NATO,” she stressed.
(WORLD)