'No Worries' About Putin's Visit To Mongolia, Kremlin Says, Despite ICC Warrant For His Arrest

The Kremlin on August 30 said it is not concerned about President Vladimir Putin's visit to Mongolia on September 3, despite an arrest warrant that the International Criminal Court (ICC) says Mongolia is obligated to act on.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters during his daily conference call on August 30 that the Kremlin has “no worries” about the upcoming trip, adding that Russia has “a wonderful dialogue with our friends from Mongolia.”

The trip will be Putin’s first to a country that is a member of the ICC since the arrest warrant was issued in March 2023 over suspected war crimes in Ukraine.

ICC members are bound to detain suspects for whom the court has issued an arrest warrant if they set foot on their soil, but the court has no enforcement mechanism. Mongolia signed the Rome Statute, the court’s founding treaty, in 2000 and ratified it in 2002.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said earlier on August 30 that it hoped that the Mongolian government “will realize the fact that Vladimir Putin is a war criminal” and called on the Mongolian authorities to comply with the international arrest warrant and hand Putin over to the ICC.

ICC spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah underscored in a statement quoted by the AP on August 30 that Mongolia “is a State Party to the ICC Rome Statute” and thus has the obligation to cooperate with the court.

The ICC relies on its state parties and other partners to execute its decisions, including arrest warrants, El Abdallah said in the statement.

The ICC accused Putin in March 2023 of personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine. Maria Lvova-Belova, Moscow’s commissioner for children's rights, is also named in the warrant, which alleges they committed war crimes in connection with the deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children.

Russia is not a member of the ICC and refuses to hand over suspects. Russian officials have dismissed the warrants as “null and void.”

Putin will travel to Mongolia at the invitation of President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh to participate in ceremonies marking the 85th anniversary of the joint victory of the Soviet and Mongolian armies over Japan on the Khalkhin Gol River, a Kremlin statement said.