Putin will be haunted by an arrest warrant for the rest of his life: ex-ambassador

Michael McFaul, former US Ambassador to Russia, predicted that the arrest warrant issued Friday by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes against Russian President Vladimir Putin would stay with the Russian leader for the rest of his life.

“Putin will be ‘haunted(ed) for the rest of his life’ by term,” McFaul tweeted on Saturday, also sharing his Friday interview with NBC News host Chuck Todd on Meet the press.

Putin has long been accused of war crimes even before he invaded Ukraine last February, but calls to investigate these crimes grew once war broke out in the Eastern European country. The Russian Federation has been implicated in human rights abuses and a crackdown on dissent in Crimea, which was annexed from Ukraine by Moscow in 2014, according to Amnesty International, an international human rights organization. the man.

The Russian president is unlikely to face charges while he is still in power, Todd said Friday during his interview with McFaul. There is also no guarantee that the Russian leadership will be held accountable and brought to justice under international law, according to Bloomberg, as the ICC relies on its member countries to make the arrests. However, defendants could still avoid traveling to countries where they could be surrendered.

Still, McFaul called the ICC’s decision “symbolic,” even though Putin won’t be arrested anytime soon, he predicted. The ICC prosecutes those accused of war crimes while Russia does not recognize the court.

Putin has been accused by the ICC of abducting and illegally transporting Ukrainian children and teenagers to Russia, where many have been adopted by Russian families. An arrest warrant has also been issued against the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova.

“We want to talk about these crimes that he committed. We want to document them and we want to deter others from possibly participating in the future. I think that’s the most important thing,” said McFaul, who has served as Russian Ambassador to the United States from 2012. to 2014. “People might think twice. Russians might think twice before committing similar crimes in Ukraine, knowing that they … went after Putin, they can chase you to Mr. Soldat, so I think that’s a good thing.”

He continued: “It’s going to haunt him (Putin) for the rest of his life. He’s going to be indicted by them for the rest of his life. He’s going to have to think about where he’s going to travel for the rest of his life. And in other cases, I think of (Slobodan) Milošević when he was initially indicted for crimes against humanity, he laughed about it, (as if it was) no big deal and then (he was ) finally stopped.”

Milošević was the former president of Serbia who was overthrown in 2000 after mass protests in Belgrade, which erupted after he denied the results of the September 24 presidential election that year. He lost to Vojislav Koštunica, the democratic opposition candidate from Serbia, and finally relented on October 5.

Two years later, he was charged with genocide and war crimes in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, and stood trial in The Hague, Netherlands. He died in 2006 of a heart attack while in his prison cell at the Hague Tribunal detention centre.

The ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine has already impacted Putin’s way of life, according to former US Ambassador to Russia John Sullivan, who said the Russian president was concerned about his own safety and could limit its movements accordingly.

“From what we’ve seen, his lifestyle has been affected in the following way,” Sullivan said last week. “He can’t fly anywhere near the southwest of Russia to get to Sochi, for example, one of his favorite places. He can’t fly there. He travels Now more in the process.He’s concerned about his economic impacts, if it’s more about supporting his lavish lifestyle, I don’t think it’s really a concern about his own safety.

Newsweek contacted the Russian Foreign Ministry by email for comment.