Daily Briefing: War in UkraineInternational Criminal Court Issues Arrest Warrant for Putin

The court at The Hague accused the Russian president of bearing criminal responsibility for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children. Human rights groups praised the move, though the likelihood of an imminent arrest appeared slim.

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Here are the latest developments.

The International Criminal Court on Friday issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for war crimes, saying he bore criminal responsibility for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children.

Ukrainian officials and human-rights groups hailed the warrant as an important step in holding Moscow to account for abuses during its yearlong war. The country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said the warrant represented the beginning of “historical responsibility.”

The likelihood of a trial while Mr. Putin remains in power appears slim because the court cannot try defendants in absentia and Russia has said it will not surrender its own officials. Still, the warrant deepens Mr. Putin’s isolation from the West and could limit his travel overseas.

The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, noted that Russia does not recognize the court and called its decision to issue a warrant “null and void.”

Here are other developments:

  • Mr. Putin will receive China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, for a state visit to Russia starting on Monday that Beijing said would promote peace efforts between Russia and Ukraine. The United States has questioned whether China can play a mediating role, given its close relationship with Russia, and a White House spokesman said Friday that the United States was opposed to China’s proposal for an immediate cease-fire because it would cement the position of Russia’s troops.

  • Turkey announced that it would move to ratify Finland’s application to join NATO, clearing a significant hurdle for the Nordic nation’s bid to join the alliance but leaving neighboring Sweden on the sidelines for now.

  • The government of Slovakia said that it would send 13 Soviet-designed fighter jets to Ukraine, a day after a similar announcement by Poland’s president. The pledge from a second NATO ally could be a marked shift in increasing arms supplies for Kyiv. But most of Slovakia’s MIG-29 warplanes are not in working order so their delivery to Ukraine, likely to provide spare parts for Ukraine’s own fleet of Soviet-era jets, will not change the balance of force on the battlefield.

  • The deal with Russia enabling Ukraine to resume shipments of its grain abroad that has been in place since July is set to expire on Saturday. Russia is willing to extend the deal for 60 days, but U.N. negotiators are holding out for 120 days. Martin Griffiths, the U.N. aid chief, told the Security Council on Friday that U.N. officials were “sparing no effort” to secure an extension.

Michael D. Shear
March 17, 2023, 7:30 p.m. ET

Asked about the International Criminal Court's arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, President Biden said Friday, “I think it’s justified.” He noted that the I.C.C. is not recognized by the United States, but said the warrant “makes a very strong point.” Putin has "clearly committed war crimes," Biden added, speaking to reporters at the White House as he boarded Marine One to head to his house in Delaware for the weekend.

March 17, 2023, 5:26 p.m. ET

Here’s what to know about the I.C.C.’s arrest warrant for Putin.

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A smashed portrait of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia seen last year outside a police prison in Kherson City, Ukraine, where occupying Russian forces held Ukrainian prisoners.Credit...Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

The International Criminal Court on Friday issued an arrest warrant for war crimes for President Vladimir V. Putin and a second Russian official. Here’s a closer look at the court, the warrant and what it could mean for Russia’s leader.

Why did the International Criminal Court issue the warrants?

The court says that Mr. Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February last year. The court also issued a warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, who has been the public face of a Kremlin-sponsored program in which Ukrainian children and teenagers have been taken to Russia.

The court said in a statement “that there are reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect bears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”

A New York Times investigation published in October identified several Ukrainian children who had been taken away under Russia’s systematic resettlement efforts. The children described a wrenching process of coercion, deception and force. Russia has defended the transfers on humanitarian grounds.

Lawyers familiar with the I.C.C.’s case recently said they expected prosecutors to proceed with the arrest warrants because there was a strong trail of public evidence. On Friday, the court said in a statement that it was mindful “that the conduct addressed in the present situation is allegedly ongoing, and that the public awareness of the warrants may contribute to the prevention of the further commission of crimes.”

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Outside the International Criminal Court in The Hague last year.Credit...Dmitry Kostyukov for The New York Times

What is the International Criminal Court?

The International Criminal Court was created two decades ago as a standing body to investigate war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity under a 1998 treaty known as the Rome Statute. Previously, the United Nations Security Council had established ad hoc tribunals to address atrocities in places like the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

The court is based in The Hague, a Dutch city that has long been a center for international law and justice.

Many democracies joined the International Criminal Court, including close American allies like Britain. But the United States has long kept its distance, fearing that the court might one day seek to prosecute American officials, and Russia is also not a member.

The Biden administration has been engaged in an internal dispute over whether to provide the court with evidence gathered by the U.S. intelligence community about Russian war crimes. Most of the administration favors transferring the evidence, according to people familiar with the internal deliberations, but the Pentagon has balked because it does not want to set a precedent that could pave the way for eventual prosecutions of Americans.

What does the warrant mean for Mr. Putin?

Human rights groups hailed the warrant as an important step toward ending impunity for Russian war crimes in Ukraine, but the likelihood of a trial while Mr. Putin remains in power appears slim, because the court cannot try defendants in absentia and Russia has said it will not surrender its own officials.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry quickly dismissed the warrants, noting that it is not a party to the court. Still, the warrant for Mr. Putin’s arrest deepens his isolation in the West and could limit his movements overseas. If he travels to a state that is party to the I.C.C., that country must arrest him, according to its obligations under international law.

“This makes Putin a pariah,” Stephen Rapp, a former ambassador at large heading the Office of Global Criminal Justice in the U.S. State Department, said. “If he travels, he risks arrest. This never goes away.” And, he said, Russia cannot gain relief from sanctions without complying with the warrants.

“Either Putin is placed on trial in The Hague,” Mr. Rapp said, or “he is increasingly isolated, and dies with this hanging over his head.”

So Putin may never face trial?

The court has no power to arrest sitting heads of state or bring them to trial, and instead must rely on other leaders and governments to act as its sheriffs around the world. A suspect who manages to evade capture may never have a hearing to confirm the charges.

However, late last year, a legal move complicated the issue. In November, the court’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, petitioned to move ahead with the confirmation of charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity against Joseph Kony, the Ugandan militant and founder of the Lord’s Resistance Army, even though he is not in custody and has been a fugitive for years. Mr. Kony, who transformed kidnapped children into soldiers, is accused of murder, cruel treatment, enslavement, rape and attacks against civilian population.

Mr. Khan’s petition amounts to a trial balloon, to see whether the court will agree that charges can be confirmed even if someone is not in custody. The decision is pending.

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Michael D. Shear
March 17, 2023, 5:22 p.m. ET

A spokeswoman for the National Security Council said the United States supports efforts to bring war criminals to justice, noting the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court is independent and makes decisions based on evidence. “There is no doubt that Russia is committing war crimes and atrocities in Ukraine, and we have been clear that those responsible must be held accountable,” the spokeswoman, Adrienne Watson, said in a statement.

Anushka PatilMarc Santora
March 17, 2023, 4:30 p.m. ET

These are some of the other world leaders that have faced justice in The Hague.

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Slobodan Milosevic, whose embrace of Serbian nationalism set off almost a decade of war in the Balkans, during his initial hearing in The Hague on July 3, 2001.Credit...Raphael Gaillarde/Gamma-Rapho, via Getty Images

The International Criminal Court’s announcement on Friday that it had issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia instantly put him in the company of notorious world leaders who have been indicted or convicted in The Hague, either by the I.C.C. or under ad hoc tribunals.

The I.C.C. was modeled after the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals held after World War II, which laid bare the atrocities and crimes against humanity committed then. The court was created in 2002 at The Hague, a city in the Netherlands that has long been a center of international law, where other tribunals have also sought to bring world leaders to justice. Here are some examples:

  • A few months before the I.C.C. came into force, an ad hoc tribunal began the trial of Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader whose embrace of nationalism set off almost a decade of Balkan warfare that took more than 200,000 lives.

    Milosevic died in 2006 in his prison cell at The Hague before a verdict could be reached, but his public reckoning made legal history nonetheless. Human Rights Watch later declared that the trial was “the end of the era when being a head of state meant immunity from prosecution.”

  • In June 2011, the I.C.C. issued an arrest warrant for the Libyan dictator Muammar el-Qaddafi for the murder and persecution of civilians during the Arab Spring uprising, prompting celebrations in some areas of the country. The case was closed shortly after his grisly death in October of that year, which saw him bloodied and dragged through the streets.

    Qaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam el-Qaddafi, is also wanted by the I.C.C. for crimes against humanity, and remains at large.

  • Omar al-Bashir, the former leader of Sudan, has been wanted by the I.C.C. since 2009. He was indicted on charges of genocide and war crimes for the horrors his government unleashed in a long conflict in the western Sudanese area of Darfur, where at least 300,000 people were killed. That he has managed to elude being sent to The Hague for so long, even after being deposed in April 2019, has become a prominent and vexing example of the I.C.C.’s limitations.

  • In 2012, Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president and warlord, became the first former head of state convicted by an international tribunal since the Nuremberg trials. The judge who presided over his sentencing near The Hague said he was guilty of “aiding and abetting, as well as planning, some of the most heinous and brutal crimes recorded in human history” during Sierra Leone’s civil war in the 1990s.

Marc Santora
March 17, 2023, 4:18 p.m. ET

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

Explosions echoed across Kyiv on Friday night as air defense systems were engaged. Ukrainian officials reported swarms of Russian drones targeting cities around the country. Air defenses were at work in the Odessa, Dnipro and Chernihiv regions, though there were no immediate reports of successful strikes. Russia often uses drones as a prelude to missile strikes to wear down Ukraine’s air defenses.

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Valerie Hopkins
March 17, 2023, 4:03 p.m. ET

Who is Maria Lvova-Belova?

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In a photo provided by Russian state media, President Vladimir V. Putin, left, meets with Maria Lvova-Belova, Russian children’s rights commissioner, in Moscow in February.Credit...Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik, via Getty Images

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia on Friday — and also one for Maria Lvova-Belova, his commissioner for children’s rights and a loyal party servant.

Ms. Lvova-Belova has led Russia’s efforts to deport thousands of Ukrainian children, including their removal by Russian forces. The United States imposed sanctions on Ms. Lvova-Belova in September for coordinating what the Treasury Department said were policies that facilitated forced adoptions into Russian families and for legislative changes aimed at expediting Russian citizenship for Ukrainian children.

Although Russia has consistently defended these actions, presenting them as a humanitarian effort to protect orphaned or abandoned Ukrainian children, the I.C.C. and Ukraine view them as forced abductions and an attempt to erase the children’s heritage.

Plans to place Ukrainian children from Russian-occupied territories with Russian families were discussed publicly just days after the start of the full-scale invasion in February 2022, and by the time Mr. Putin met with Ms. Lvova-Belova on March 9, 2022, “more than one thousand” children from occupied Ukraine had already been moved to Russian territory. Ms. Lvova-Belova has said that she herself adopted a teenager from Mariupol.

The estimates of children taken from Ukraine to Russia vary widely, but Ukrainian prosecutors say they have documented the deportation of 16,000 children.

Researchers at Yale University have called Ms. Lvova-Belova “one of the most highly involved figures in Russia’s deportation and adoption of Ukraine’s children, as well as in the use of camps for ‘integrating’ Ukraine’s children into Russia’s society and culture.”

Ms. Lvova-Belova studied to be a conductor and started her professional life as a guitar teacher in the Penza region. In 2019, she joined the United Russia party, which is closely aligned with Mr. Putin, and became part of its leadership council. In 2020, she became a senator in the Federation Council, Russia’s upper chamber of Parliament.

Mr. Putin appointed Ms Lvova-Belova as his commissioner for children’s rights in October 2021.

She responded to news of the warrant with defiance.

“Firstly, it’s great that the international community has appreciated the work to help the children of our country, that we don’t leave them in the war zone, that we take them out, that we create good conditions for them, surround them with loving caring people,” she told the Russian outlet RBK. “There were sanctions from all countries, even Japan, against me, now there is an arrest warrant. I wonder what will happen next. Well, we continue to work.”

Marc Santora
March 17, 2023, 3:28 p.m. ET

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who has denounced Russia’s forced deportation of Ukrainian children since the first weeks of the war, hailed the I.C.C. warrant for Vladimir Putin as the moment that “historical responsibility will begin.” “It would be impossible to carry out such a criminal operation without the order of the top leader of the terrorist state,” he said in a video statement.

Marc Santora
March 17, 2023, 3:28 p.m. ET

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

“Separating children from their families, depriving them of any opportunity to contact their relatives, hiding children on Russian territory, scattering them in remote regions — all this is obviously Russian state policy, state decisions, state evil,” Zelensky said. “Which begins precisely with the first official of this state.”

Charlie Savage
March 17, 2023, 3:16 p.m. ET

The arrest warrant isn’t quite an indictment. But the I.C.C. doesn’t do those, exactly.

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The International Criminal Court in The Hague during the 2022 trial of Dominic Ongwen, a Ugandan who is a commander of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army.Credit...Pool photo by Sem van der Wal

The International Criminal Court’s decision on Friday to issue arrest warrants for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and his children’s rights commissioner over Russia’s kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children is not quite the same thing as indicting them. The court at The Hague has a different system, according to legal experts.

In the United States, it is common for targets of criminal investigations to be charged before they are arrested. A grand jury indicts someone and based on those charges a judge then issues an arrest warrant. Previous war-crimes courts, like the ad hoc tribunal for the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, also used indictments.

But at the International Criminal Court, the prosecutor — Karim Khan — at the initial stage goes before a panel of three judges in a “pretrial chamber” and presents evidence showing he has reasonable grounds to believe that individuals bear responsibility for certain war crimes. If the judges agree, they issue arrest warrants, putting the suspects on notice of what they would likely be charged with if they were tried.

Traditionally, if the suspects are later taken into custody and brought before the court at The Hague, they receive a pretrial hearing at which prosecutors present evidence that they contend is sufficient under a higher legal standard for the case to go to trial.

The pretrial chamber would then have the chance to “confirm” the charges, if any, issuing a formal charging document, more equivalent to a domestic grand jury indictment, according to Harold Hongju Koh, a Yale Law School professor of international law and former top lawyer at the State Department in the Obama administration.

A suspect who manages to evade capture, however, may never have a hearing to confirm the charges. As a result, Mr. Koh said, for Mr. Putin, the arrest warrant “may be as much as we get.”

Complicating matters, however, late last year, Mr. Khan petitioned the pretrial chamber to move ahead with confirming charges against Joseph Kony, the Ugandan militant and founder of the Lord’s Resistance Army, even though he is not in custody and has been a fugitive for years.

Mr. Khan’s petition amounts to an experiment or trial balloon to see whether the court would agree that charges can be confirmed even if someone is not in custody. The pretrial chamber has not yet ruled on that petition.

Even if Mr. Putin is only ever the subject of an arrest warrant, Mr. Koh said, it still serves an important purpose. It further isolates Mr. Putin and further restricts his ability to travel abroad. It also potentially deters China from giving Russia weapons, sends a message to others in the Russian bureaucracy and might reduce resistance inside the Pentagon to sharing evidence with the court.

“I think it is a net plus — anything that enhances the pressure moves the dial,” he said.

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Steven Erlanger
March 17, 2023, 2:12 p.m. ET

A top E.U. official, Josep Borrell Fontelles, said in a tweet on Friday that the I.C.C.’s arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin represented “the start of the process of accountability.”

Marlise Simons
March 17, 2023, 2:05 p.m. ET

Lawyers familiar with the I.C.C.’s case recently said they expected prosecutors to proceed with the arrest warrants because there was a strong trail of public evidence. The two people named by the court are Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, who has appeared many times on television to promote the adoption of Ukrainian children; and Putin, who signed a decree in May to speed up access to Russian citizenship for Ukrainians.

Emma Bubola
March 17, 2023, 2:00 p.m. ET

Children described coercion, deception and force as they were taken to Russia from Ukraine.

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A broken window at a hospital in Mariupol, Ukraine, in March 2022.Credit...Evgeniy Maloletka/Associated Press

The International Criminal Court said that the two Russians named in the arrest warrant it issued on Friday — President Vladimir V. Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights — bore individual criminal responsibility for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children.

The court did not give many more details about the accusations, but in October, The New York Times reported on evidence that pro-Russian forces had intercepted children who were trying to flee the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol and put them on buses headed deeper into Russian-held territory.

One girl, originally from eastern Ukraine but living in a group home in Mariupol when the war started, was later taken to Russia, placed in a Russian foster family and given Russian citizenship.

“I didn’t want to go,” said the girl, Anya, 15. “But nobody asked me.”

Other children described a wrenching process of coercion, deception and force as they were moved to Russia from Ukraine.

Ivan Matkovsky, 16, who lived in a government boarding school in Mariupol, was also rerouted at a checkpoint after trying to flee and ended up in a hospital in Russian-controlled Ukraine.

He and one of his schoolmates eventually managed to contact their school’s headmaster and arrange their return, but the other children were put on a bus for Russia. They protested. “No one listened to them,” Ivan said. “They had no choice.”

Among the other children in the hospital, Ivan said, was an 8-year-old boy named Nazar, who never found his mother after the Mariupol theater in which they had been hiding was pummeled by airstrikes in one of the war’s defining atrocities.

In Russia, the authorities were not hiding that they were taking these children. Instead, they promoted the efforts as a humanitarian mission, parading the children on television and welcoming them with teddy bears.

“We are not taking what is not ours,” said Olga Druzhinina, a woman from the Siberian city of Salekhard, along the Arctic Circle, who said she adopted four children, ages 6 to 17, from around the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, more than 1,600 miles away. She drew parallels to Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions, a move widely seen as illegal.

“Our family is like a small Russia,” she said. “Russia took in four territories, and the Druzhinin family took in four children.”

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Emma Bubola
March 17, 2023, 2:00 p.m. ET

“This makes Putin a pariah,” Stephen Rapp, a former ambassador at large heading the Office of Global Criminal Justice in the U.S. State Department, said in an emailed message. “If he travels, he risks arrest. This never goes away. Russia cannot gain relief from sanctions without compliance with the warrants.” Either Putin is placed on trial in The Hague, he said, or “he is increasingly isolated, and dies with this hanging over his head.”

Carlotta Gall
March 17, 2023, 1:55 p.m. ET

A research project published in February by Yale University explored Russia's dealings with Ukrainian children, the focus of the arrest warrant the I.C.C. issued on Friday. The project identified 6,000 Ukrainian children who were held in 43 children’s homes and other facilities in Russia and in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine since the war began last year. Among them were orphans, those being cared for Ukrainian state institutions and those who were separated from their parents or legal guardians.

Marc Santora
March 17, 2023, 1:45 p.m. ET

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

The International Criminal Court‘s arrest warrant focuses on the Russia's wartime abduction of children, but Ukrainian prosecutors said on Friday that they were aware of more than 72,000 Russian war crimes, which includes acts that led to almost 10,000 civilian deaths, according to Mykola Govorukha, a representative of the Office of the Prosecutor General. The photograph shows the exhumation of a 15-year-old girl in the recently liberated southern Ukrainian village of Pravdyne in November.

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Credit...Finbarr O'Reilly for The New York Times
Marlise Simons
March 17, 2023, 1:43 p.m. ET

In the past, the judges at the International Criminal Court have taken months to review charges before issuing arrest warrants. But the devastation taking place in Ukraine has put the court under pressure to act swiftly. More than 40 countries that are parties to the court have requested its intervention.

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Charlie Savage
March 17, 2023, 1:35 p.m. ET

In an internal fight, the Pentagon has objected to sharing evidence with the I.C.C.

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The Pentagon in Arlington, Va., in 2021.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

The International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Russia’s children’s rights commissioner come as the Biden administration has been engaged in an internal dispute over whether to provide evidence gathered by the American intelligence community about Russian war crimes — including the kidnapping of Ukrainian children — to the court at The Hague.

While most of the Biden administration, including the State and Justice Departments, favor transferring the evidence, according to people familiar with internal deliberations, the Pentagon has balked because it does not want to set a precedent that it fears could pave the way toward eventual prosecutions of Americans.

Under administrations of both parties, the United States has taken the position that the court should not exercise jurisdiction over citizens of countries that are not parties to the treaty that created the International Criminal Court — like Russia and the United States — even if the alleged war crimes took place on the territory of a country that is a member, like Ukraine and Afghanistan.

The Russian government cited that interpretation of the treaty on Friday in dismissing the significance of the arrest warrants. Some American legal specialists have urged the Defense Department to abandon that position, arguing that it will do little to deter future prosecutions of Americans because that interpretation is not widely shared around the world.

The legal specialists have said that the United States could instead argue that the International Criminal Court should only be used against nationals of countries that lack functioning investigative systems capable of addressing serious international crimes by their citizens. Under that criteria, Russia qualifies but the United States does not, they say.

Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, said in a phone interview that the warrants were “more than justified based on the evidence,” adding that “for the world to forgive and forget Putin’s war crimes, which are being committed on an industrial scale, would irrevocably undercut the rule-of-law-based world order since the end of World War II.”

Mr. Graham added: “I am hoping that the intelligence information available to the United States that would aid the I.C.C. in their prosecutions of Russian war crimes against Ukraine will flow unencumbered. The Department of Defense’s reluctance to share information is undercutting our efforts to hold Putin accountable.”

Glenn Thrush
March 17, 2023, 1:14 p.m. ET

Reporting from Washington

The U.S. Department of Justice, which has been investigating several cases in which Americans were killed, injured or mistreated in Ukraine, is not currently investigating Mr. Putin for war crimes, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. But that could change, even if the possibility remains remote: Late last year, Congress gave prosecutors broader power to pursue cases involving non-American victims, provided that the perpetrator travels to the U.S. or is extradited by an ally.

Marc Santora
March 17, 2023, 1:04 p.m. ET

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

The I.C.C.’s arrest warrants can be kept secret to protect victims and witnesses, but the court said that in this case it was “in the interests of justice to publicly disclose the existence of the warrant.” The court added it was mindful “that the conduct addressed in the present situation is allegedly ongoing, and that the public awareness of the warrants may contribute to the prevention of the further commission of crimes.”

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The New York Times
March 17, 2023, 12:57 p.m. ET

‘The Daily’ explored how Russia is turning Ukrainian children into spoils of war.

As Russian troops pushed into Ukraine last year, children who were fleeing newly occupied territories were swept up. Many became part of a Russian effort to portray itself as a savior. In this episode of “The Daily,” New York Times reporter Emma Bubola tells the story of Anya, a child who was taken from Ukraine.

The Daily Poster

Listen to ‘The Daily’: Why Russia Is Taking Thousands of Ukrainian Children

The story of one girl who ended up in a Russian foster family shows the damage done by a mass transfer of children, part of a vast propaganda campaign.
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transcript

Listen to ‘The Daily’: Why Russia Is Taking Thousands of Ukrainian Children

The story of one girl who ended up in a Russian foster family shows the damage done by a mass transfer of children, part of a vast propaganda campaign.

[MUSIC PLAYING] This transcript was created using speech recognition software. While it has been reviewed by human transcribers, it may contain errors. Please review the episode audio before quoting from this transcript and email transcripts@nytimes.com with any questions.

sabrina tavernise

From “The New York Times,” I’m Sabrina Tavernise, and this is “The Daily.”

[MUSIC PLAYING]

As Vladimir Putin makes his case for the war in Ukraine to the Russian people, he’s using an unexpected tool — Ukrainian children. Ukraine says thousands of them, mostly orphans, have been relocated to Russia, where they’re placed in Russian families and paraded on Russian television. Today, my colleague, Emma Bubola, tells the story of one of those children.

It’s Friday, March 3.

So Emma, usually, when we talk about the war in Ukraine, we talk about battles, and weapons, and military strategy. But you’ve been reporting on a very different kind of campaign by Russia, and this campaign involves children. Tell me about this reporting.

emma bubola

Yes, so I was covering the news about Ukraine last summer, and I started seeing this pretty shocking allegations by Ukrainian authorities that Russia was taking Ukrainian children without their parents to Russia, and sometimes placing them in Russian families and giving them up for adoption.

sabrina tavernise

And Emma, to be clear, the accusations were that Russian soldiers were taking Ukrainian children back to Russia?

emma bubola

Now, at that time, the accusations were really vague. So it was, Russia is taking Ukrainian children. But we did not know exactly where they were taking them to, where they were taking them from, how they were being taken, and who was taking them. And that’s what I wanted to figure out — to identify at least some cases, to report if this was happening and how.

sabrina tavernise

And when you started looking into it, what were you seeing?

emma bubola

So Sabrina, it looked like there was a pattern of systematic removal of Ukrainian children, many from group homes that are very common in Ukraine — orphanages or institutions that care for children who are not necessarily orphans. And they were relocating them to Russia with the plan to give them Russian citizenship and placing them in Russian families.

And Ukrainian authorities say that while the majority of these children who have been forcibly taken to Russia were orphans, there were many who were also taken from their parents, separated from their parents at filtration points, or who have relatives or family who would be ready to take them back in Ukraine.

sabrina tavernise

So essentially, not all of these children were necessarily abandoned? In some cases, Ukraine is actually saying Russia separated them from their parents?

emma bubola

Yes, they’re saying that in some cases, their parents were imprisoned and the children were taken to Russia.

sabrina tavernise

Wow. What’s the scale? How many children are we talking about?

emma bubola

Yes, so from the beginning, it seemed like a pretty serious problem because both Russia and Ukraine did not deny that it was at least a thousand children, probably many more. But Ukraine says that Russia has taken 16,000 children.

sabrina tavernise

Oh, wow, that’s a lot of children.

emma bubola

Yeah, this is just the number that Ukraine has been able to verify — they know exactly the name of these children, where they were from, where they are. And they say these children are mostly orphans.

sabrina tavernise

So Russia says it’s at least a thousand. Ukraine says it’s more like 16,000. So at the very least, we can say this is thousands of children?

emma bubola

Yeah, but I wanted to understand what was the actual experience of one of these children. Because Russians, they agreed that this was happening and on a big scale, but they were portraying what was happening in very different ways. So to Ukraine, these were stolen, kidnapped children, and to Russia, these were rescued children. So I wanted to speak to one child and to understand what was their actual experience of this.

sabrina tavernise

Interesting, because both sides essentially did not disagree that this was a big thing that was going on, but they totally disagreed about what it that was going on.

emma bubola

Yeah, exactly. So I started reaching out to children who had had some experience with this transfer to Russian-controlled areas. And as I interviewed them, many of them seem to point me in the direction of one girl who was still in Russia, Anya. And with my colleague Alina Lobzina from the Moscow Bureau, we managed to find Anya on social media. And slowly, over weeks, she told us her story.

sabrina tavernise

Tell me about Anya.

emma bubola

So Anya is a 14, now 15-year-old girl. And to reconstruct Anya’s story, we spoke to her over months. But we also spoke to her friends, and we had access to some court documents. And so her story is the story of a child from Eastern Ukraine who, some months before the war started, was actually flagged to Ukraine social services as living in a family in which parents avoided fulfilling parental responsibilities.

sabrina tavernise

And what does that mean?

emma bubola

According to court documents, they describe her house as being unfit to welcome children. Her mother was disabled and she was out of work. So they moved her to this sanatorium. This is something that is very common in Ukraine.

So before the war, more than 90,000 children were living in institutions. This is a heritage from the Soviet era in which there was a kind of idea that the state can care for the children of families who cannot afford to care for them. Or, if the child is disabled or has other issues, the state can care for them better than their family.

sabrina tavernise

And so Anya was among those 90,000 Ukrainian children who were wards of the state or were living in institutions for some other reason?

emma bubola

Yes, so Anya was living in a group home in the city of Mariupol. And so children who were with her in this group home described her as a shy girl with a passion for drawing and for reading fairy tales, either by herself or to a younger child that she was kind of being like an older sister for. And she was like really caring with her and affectionate.

sabrina tavernise

So what happens to Anya when the war breaks out? I mean, we know that Mariupol was just pummeled by Russian forces.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

emma bubola

Yes, so some children managed to reconnect with their parents and leave this group home in Mariupol. But Anya, who had had sporadic contact with her mother, does not manage to make contact with her or get picked up by her. So together with about 16 other children, she hides in the basement of this group home. And that actually turns out to be a smart idea because shells fall near some of the buildings of this group home.

And after some days of hiding, one volunteer from Mariupol finds the children in this group home and decides to evacuate them, to bring them away, because it was extremely dangerous at the time. And so he puts them on an ambulance and wants to take them to Zaporizhia. It’s another city in Ukraine that was considered safer then.

But as they head out of the city, they get stopped at a checkpoint because Mariupol was already under Russian siege. And they are not let through.

So as the children wait for a decision to be made about what’s going to happen to them, everyone whom I spoke to who was there described the group of pro-Russian officials storming in and kind of deciding that these children are going to go into Russian-controlled territory instead of going to a safer part of Ukraine.

sabrina tavernise

Wow.

emma bubola

And Anya and the other children were put on a bus headed deeper into Russian-controlled territory.

sabrina tavernise

So these kids who were in a vehicle headed toward Ukrainian territory were actually taken out of that vehicle and put on a bus headed to Russian territory?

emma bubola

Yes, exactly. From there, Anya is taken to Russia. So Anya told us that no one really asked her if she wanted to go to Russia. And she called a friend and she cried because she didn’t want to be there. So first, she spent some time in some camps or rehabilitation facilities, as they call them. And then, she gets moved into a foster family.

sabrina tavernise

And what was that foster home like?

emma bubola

Yes, so in her foster home, there are six more children, four dogs. Anya shared her room with two boys, which she says is fun and not scary because she says she’s often scared to be alone. She called her foster parents aunt and uncle. She said they treat her nicely, they do crafts together, they go to parks, walk the dogs in the evenings. But when we spoke to her last fall, she still very much wanted to go back to her home and be reunited with her family.

sabrina tavernise

So on the one hand, Anya has been forced to go to Russia, a place she didn’t want to go in the first place. But on the other hand, it’s a less dire and desperate picture than I was imagining. I mean, she likes her foster family.

emma bubola

Yeah, I mean, they’re not bringing children to prison camps. They are very much placing them into families. And many times, these families are very well-meaning. They have a mix of patriotism and love for these children.

sabrina tavernise

And does she go to school?

emma bubola

Yes, at the same time, she told us that she went to school and that she had these classes, that are basically patriotism classes, called “Conversations about Important Things,” that were recently introduced in Russia. And they’re given — in these classes, they teach topics like the geopolitical situation or traditional values. It’s basically to teach children how to be proud of Russia.

sabrina tavernise

The geopolitical situation as in the war in Ukraine?

emma bubola

Yeah, they do talk about the war, and they are given virtual tours of Crimea, for example.

sabrina tavernise

And what did they tell her about the war in Ukraine?

emma bubola

So we don’t know this from Anya, because it was really hard to get information from her about these classes. But what we do know is that when she was at one of these centers where she was staying in Russia before she went into the family, she told us the teachers knew more than I do about Ukraine. They tell me that Ukraine is really bad. But she said, I don’t believe it. For me, Ukraine will always be good.

sabrina tavernise

So they’re really trying to teach her that her own country is a bad place and she should be glad she’s in Russia?

emma bubola

Yeah, for sure. I think the purpose is to integrate her completely into Russian society. And I mean, the, maybe, strongest evidence of that is the fact that she was given Russian citizenship. So she has the Russian passport now.

sabrina tavernise

So she was given Russian citizenship. Is that usual?

emma bubola

Yeah, there is a clear intention by Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, to give citizenship to orphans from Ukraine. And he did a decree to streamline this procedure in May. And so this is just another indication of how systematic Russia wants this Russification of Ukrainian children to be.

sabrina tavernise

So it’s not just Anya. It’s all of these other children, and it’s directed by Putin himself. But why is Russia doing this? Like what’s in it for them?

emma bubola

I think a lot of the answer to this question might be in the way that Russia is not hiding the transfer of at least more than a thousand children from Ukraine. That kind of shows that Russia is using these children as part of a propaganda campaign to portray Russia as saviors of Ukrainian children and of Ukraine.

We’ll be right back.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

sabrina tavernise

So Emma, before the break, you were telling me that there had been thousands of Ukrainian children taken to Russian territory, and that this act by Russia was largely for propaganda purposes. You said that they were trying to frame their war as a humanitarian mission. Who, exactly, is Russia talking to here, and what is it trying to sell?

emma bubola

So this relocation of Ukrainian children fits really nicely into a propaganda targeted at domestic audience in Russia because this war is premised on the idea that Ukraine doesn’t really exist and that Ukraine is just a part of Russia, that Ukrainian identity isn’t real, and that all Russia is doing is correcting a historical mistake by making Ukraine a part of Russia again. So the message is that these children are Russian and going back to where they belong.

sabrina tavernise

So this is something that Putin has been arguing all along — that, essentially, there is no Ukraine, that it’s just Russia — and that it has these strange habits, but it really is Russia and belongs to Russia.

emma bubola

Yeah, I spoke to a mother who told me that she took into her family four children from Ukraine. And she told me we’re not taking anything that is not ours. And she even likened what her family did to what Russia is doing because Russia annexed four territories, and our family took in four children. So it’s there is really like a parallel between this broader idea of a war in which Russia is rescuing Ukraine, and these families are rescuing these children.

And I think that these children are actually a very effective way of doing this because, often, they were not torn from perfect families. Many of them were orphans or living in state-run facilities before the war. So they have even a stronger case, arguing that Russia is giving a family — and a loving family — to children who would otherwise have none.

sabrina tavernise

So then, Russia really is using these kids to make an argument to the Russian people about why their war is just and right. What forms does that take? What are they saying exactly, and where are they saying it?

emma bubola

Yes, there is an abundance of videos and articles and state media that show how the children are arriving to Russia and placed in Russian families. So often, these children arrive by train or by airplane and are received by TV cameras. They’re given Teddy Bears.

archived recording 1

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

emma bubola

They’re interviewed saying how happy they are to be in a Russian family.

archived recording 2

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

sabrina tavernise

Wow.

emma bubola

And they even did like a series of documentaries that was widely circulated.

archived recording 3

[MUSIC PLAYING]:

emma bubola

Especially in Russian-controlled areas of Ukraine, that —

sabrina tavernise

Documentaries about the kids?

emma bubola

Yeah, it’s a series of videos about several kids that were taken into Russian families.

archived recording 4

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

emma bubola

They describe their daily life and how, again, happy they are to be in a Russian family.

archived recording 5

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

emma bubola

And in this video, there is a lot of emphasis on the trauma that these children have been through. And for example, there is, in one of these videos —

archived recording 6

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

emma bubola

— some foster parents or adoptive parents take these children from Ukraine to — it looks like a war simulation, like a playful war simulation. But the children get really scared. And like —

[CHILDREN CRYING]

— the video shows the children crying. And it projects black and white images of war and destruction —

archived recording 7

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

emma bubola

— to advocate, maybe, what these children might be thinking about. And the Russian parent promptly comforts them.

archived recording 8

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

emma bubola

So it kind of feels like they want to emphasize the fact that Russian families are finally providing a safe, comfortable environment to these children.

archived recording 9

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

archived recording 10

[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]

emma bubola

I think that Russia forgets to say that while helping these children a few months before, like in the case of Anya, it was bombing the homes where they were staying.

sabrina tavernise

I mean, it’s just very deeply cynical use of these children.

emma bubola

One of the, I think, egregious examples is this Russian official who has coordinated this relocation effort by Russia. And she herself adopted a child from Mariupol. And she talks about him a lot on state media.

And she detailed how this child in the beginning was talking about the fact that he went to pro-Ukraine protest, and how in the beginning he was sitting alone, missing his home and his friends from Mariupol. But then, how with time, he came to appreciate his new home in Russia.

And in July, when the first batch of Ukrainian children obtained Russian citizenship in the Moscow region, and officials posed in these photo ops with them, the Russian official, in an official statement, she said, I didn’t recognize these kids from when we traveled in April on the train. Now they’re our little fellow citizens.

sabrina tavernise

It just seems like fundamentally, it’s bringing the whole mythology and thrust of the war and why Putin started it full circle, right? Ukraine isn’t a place that exists at all. Ukrainians don’t exist. They’re actually Russians. And look what we have here — we have a bunch of little Russians.

emma bubola

Yeah, I don’t know. I think it’s quite interesting how she herself illustrates what Russia wants to do with these children, which is basically cut them off from their original nation and just turn them into Russian citizens. And actually, that’s something that Ukrainian officials consider as a way in which Russia can make it even harder for them to claim them back because they’re saying, oh, they’re Russian now. Why are you asking for them? Why are you trying to get them back?

sabrina tavernise

So given that many of these children didn’t have guardians when they were taken to Russia, it probably complicates the effort to have them returned to Ukraine, right? So I guess I’m wondering, what are the Ukrainians doing to get these kids back?

emma bubola

It really depends. The Ukraine authorities are urging parents, guardians, family members to show up and to make appeals, because to start this process to return children, it usually starts from an appeal from a family member or someone who’s looking for this child. So children who don’t have anyone, of course, it’s much harder to return them because no one is actively looking for them.

sabrina tavernise

And how many kids are in that category — I mean, who have a parent or guardian step forward and claim them?

emma bubola

I don’t know in total how many have parents looking for them, or guardians. But what we know is that 300 children have already been returned out of a total of 16,000 that the Ukrainian authorities have identified. So this number is very small.

sabrina tavernise

So Emma, stepping back here, I mean, these were children, for the most part, like Anya, who were taken from group homes and orphanages and placed in families in Russia. And you know, yes, they’re being fed this Russian propaganda about their own native-born country and about Russia. But it seems like, just to play devil’s advocate here for a second, they’re in potentially better and safer environments than they were before, even if it’s not necessarily what they themselves would have chosen.

emma bubola

Yeah.

sabrina tavernise

What do you make of that?

emma bubola

Yeah, I think it’s very complicated. And yeah, we did speak to a child who was happy to be in Russia. But I think, yeah, I think it’s really not for me or for Russia to decide what’s better for Ukrainian children. The fact that some of these children might be placed in nice families is not a justification to remove masses of children from a national group to another and have them change nationality, erase their heritage, grow up in a country that, in some cases, has bombed the homes in which they were living.

And adding to that, I think that we actually don’t know much about the family situation or potential family ties of these children. And we actually have the Chief of the UN Refugee Agency said that in a situation of war, you cannot really know if a child has a family. And until that is verified, you cannot give them another nationality or have them adopted in another family because it goes against the fundamental principles of child protections in situations of war.

sabrina tavernise

Emma, is this a war crime?

emma bubola

Well, yeah. The United States recently said that this unlawful transfer of children is a breach of the Geneva Convention and constitutes a war crime. And in general, more widely, the international community has really condemned this practice. And this Russian official who has been coordinating, organizing these transfers was put on the sanctions list of several Western countries.

But prosecuting war crimes is really hard and takes a lot of time. And in the meantime, these children might grow up. And for now Stephen Rapp, the former US Ambassador at Large for War Crimes, told me that for now, there is not much that Ukraine can do to legally compel Russia to return these children.

sabrina tavernise

And what about Anya? What’s happened to her? Does her mother know where she is?

emma bubola

Yes, so Anya’s situation is very different and very difficult. So I was able to connect with her mother last fall, and she had no idea that Anya was in Russia. And even after I told her, she still couldn’t really believe it. Also, Anya’s mom is out of work. She doesn’t really have internet at home. And for her, just fathoming a trip to Russia to get her back would be like going to the moon.

But despite this, in the meantime, Anya’s mom was also officially deprived of parental rights, meaning that the government has taken away her custody. So I mean, I think she doesn’t have even much of a claim at this point. So yeah, it looks like the odds of her returning are not very high right now.

sabrina tavernise

Emma, thank you.

emma bubola

Thank you, Sabrina. [MUSIC PLAYING]

sabrina tavernise

We’ll be right back.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Here’s what else you should know today. In an unexpected meeting on Thursday at the Group of 20 conference in New Delhi, Secretary of State Antony Blinken confronted his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and demanded that Russia end its war against Ukraine. It was the first private face-to-face exchange between a US Cabinet member and a top Russian official since the invasion last year.

The meeting happened at Blinken’s request suggesting that the Biden administration wants to keep lines of communication open with Russia. It came as the White House prepares to announce another round of military aid for Ukraine when President Biden meets with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday. And —

archived recording (clifton newman)

The defendant will rise.

archived recording

The State versus Richard Alexander Murdaugh, Defendant, indictment for murder, guilty verdict.

sabrina tavernise

Alex Murdaugh, the fourth-generation lawyer whose family long exerted influence in small-town South Carolina courtrooms, was convicted on Thursday of murdering his wife and his son. The verdict sealed the dramatic downfall of a man who had substantial wealth and powerful connections, but who lived a secret life in which he stole millions of dollars from clients and colleagues and lied to many of those closest to him.

The guilty verdict in Walterboro, South Carolina followed a closely-watched trial that lasted nearly six weeks and came more than 20 months after the June, 2021 fatal shootings of Murdaugh’s wife, Maggie, and their younger son, Paul.

Today’s episode was produced by Michael Simon Johnson with help from Mooj Zadie. It was edited by MJ Davis Lin and was engineered by Chris Wood. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly

“The Daily is” made by Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, MJ Davis Lin, Dan Powell, Sydney Harper, Michael Benoist, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano, Corey Schreppel Anita Badejo, Rob Szypko, Elisheba Ittoop, Mooj Zadie, Patricia Willens, Rowan Niemisto, Jody Becker, Rikki Novetsky, John Ketchum, Nina Feldman, Will Reid, Carlos Prieto, Ben Calhoun, Susan Lee, Lexie Diao, Mary Wilson, Alex Stern, Dan Farrell, Sofia Landman, Shannon Lin, and Diane Wong.

Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Paula Szuchman, Lisa Tobin, Larissa Anderson, Julius Simon, Sofia Milan, Mahima Chablani, Des Ibekwe, Elizabeth Davis-Moorer Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Borelli, Maddy Masiello, and Isabella Anderson.

That’s it for “The Daily.” I’m Sabrina Tavernise. See you on Monday.

Charlie Savage
March 17, 2023, 12:46 p.m. ET

The U.S. has long been wary of the I.C.C., but relations have been thawing.

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The International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.Credit...Peter Dejong/Associated Press

The International Criminal Court was created two decades ago as a standing body to investigate war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity under a 1998 treaty known as the Rome Statute. In the past, the United Nations Security Council had established ad hoc tribunals to address atrocities in places like the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Many democracies joined the International Criminal Court, including close American allies like Britain. But the United States has long kept its distance, concerned that the tribunal could someday try to prosecute Americans.

Both Democratic and Republican administrations have taken the position that the court should not exercise jurisdiction over citizens of countries that are not a party to the treaty.

President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute in 2000 but, calling it flawed, did not send it to the Senate for ratification. In 2002, President George W. Bush essentially withdrew that signature. Congress, for its part, enacted laws in 1999 and 2002 that limited what support the government could provide the court.

Still, by the end of the Bush administration, the State Department declared that the United States accepted the “reality” of the court and acknowledged that it “enjoys a large body of international support.” And the Obama administration took a step toward helping the court by offering rewards for the capture of fugitive warlords in Africa whom the court had indicted.

In 2017, however, the top prosecutor for the court tried to investigate the torture of detainees accused of terrorism during the Bush administration as part of a larger inquiry into the war in Afghanistan. In response, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on the court’s personnel, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced it as corrupt.

A thaw in relations returned in 2021, when the Biden administration revoked President Trump’s sanctions, and a newly appointed prosecutor, Karim Khan, dropped the investigation.

Then Russia invaded Ukraine last year, prompting a bipartisan push to hold President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and others in his military chain of command to account for reported atrocities — and setting off debates inside the administration and in Congress about whether and how to help the court.

In late December, Congress included a provision about the International Criminal Court embedded in the large appropriations bill it passed in late December.

It created an exception to the general prohibition on providing certain funding and other aid to the court, enabling the government to assist with “investigations and prosecutions of foreign nationals related to the situation in Ukraine, including to support victims and witnesses.”

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Valerie Hopkins
March 17, 2023, 12:39 p.m. ET

The I.C.C. also issued a warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, who sounded defiant in an interview with the Russian outlet RBC. “It is great that the international community has appreciated our work to help the children of our country,” she said.

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Credit...Mikhail Metzel/Sputnik, via Getty Images
Valerie Hopkins
March 17, 2023, 12:43 p.m. ET

Lvova-Belova has been the public face of the Russian effort to transfer Ukrainian children, which the Kremlin describes as a humanitarian gesture amid the war. She added: “There were the sanctions of all countries, even Japan, against me. Now there is an arrest warrant. I wonder what will happen next. Well, we will continue to work.”

Marc Santora
March 17, 2023, 12:33 p.m. ET

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

Ruslan Stefanchuk, the speaker of the Ukrainian parliament, said the arrest warrant was “a big step in restoring world justice.” “From now on, the world will never shake hands with the one who decided to start an unprovoked brutal war in Ukraine,” he said.

Marlise SimonsAnushka Patil
March 17, 2023, 11:34 a.m. ET

The International Criminal Court issues an arrest warrant for Putin.

Image
Vladimir Putin in Moscow, on Thursday.Credit...Sputnik, via Reuters

The International Criminal Court on Friday issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for war crimes, saying that he bore individual criminal responsibility for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children since Russia’s invasion last year.

Human rights groups hailed the warrant as an important step toward ending impunity for Russian war crimes in Ukraine. The likelihood of a trial while Mr. Putin remains in power appears slim, because the court cannot try defendants in absentia and Russia has said it will not surrender its own officials.

Still, the warrant deepens Mr. Putin’s isolation in the West and could limit his movements overseas.

The court also issued a warrant for Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights. She has been the public face of a Kremlin-sponsored program in which Ukrainian children and teenagers have been taken to Russia.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry quickly dismissed the warrants, noting that it is not a party to the court.

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Arrest warrants were issued for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, for the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children.CreditCredit...Alexey Pavlishak/Reuters

The court said in a statement “that there are reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect bears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”

The I.C.C. does not recognize immunity for heads of state in cases involving war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.

The Kremlin has denied accusations of war crimes, but has not been secretive about the transfers of Ukrainian children to Russia, depicting them as adoptions of abandoned children and promoting the program as a patriotic and humanitarian effort.

“This is a big day for the many victims of crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine since 2014,” said Balkees Jarrah, the associate director for international justice at Human Rights Watch. “With these arrest warrants, the I.C.C. has made Putin a wanted man and taken its first step to end the impunity that has emboldened perpetrators in Russia’s war against Ukraine for far too long.”

Maria Zakharova, a spokeswoman for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, said the announcement had “no meaning for our country, including from a legal point of view.”

“Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and bears no obligations under it,” she said. “Russia is not cooperating with this body,” calling any efforts by the I.C.C. to make arrests “legally null and void for us.”

Ukrainian officials said the decision in effect branded Russia a criminal government and made the world a much smaller place for Mr. Putin. If the Russian leader travels to a state that is party to the I.C.C., that country must arrest him, according to its obligations under international law.

“This is just the beginning,” Andriy Yermak, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, said in a statement.

But the court’s limitations are well known — although it can indict sitting heads of state, it has no power to arrest them or bring them to trial, instead relying on other leaders and governments to act as its sheriffs around the world. This has been most prominently illustrated by the case of Sudan’s president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, who was indicted by the court but has been not been arrested in other countries where he has traveled.

A New York Times investigation published in October identified several Ukrainian children who had been taken away under Russia’s systematic resettlement efforts. They described a wrenching process of coercion, deception and force, and upon arrival in Russia or Russian-occupied territories, are often placed in homes to become Russian citizens and subjected to re-education efforts. Russia has defended the transfers on humanitarian grounds.

On Thursday, a United Nations commission of inquiry said that Russia’s transfer of children and other civilians from Ukraine to Russia may amount to a war crime, observing that none of the cases they investigated were justified under international law. Ukraine has reported the transfer of 16,221 children to Russia, but the commission said it had not been able to verify the number.

The I.C.C.’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, has said the illegal transfers of children were a priority for his investigators. “Children cannot be treated as the spoils of war,” he said after visiting a children’s home in southern Ukraine this month that he said had been emptied as a result of alleged deportations.

Valerie Hopkins and Marc Santora contributed reporting.

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Michael D. Shear
March 17, 2023, 11:31 a.m. ET

The U.S. says it opposes China’s proposal for an immediate cease-fire in Ukraine.

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John F. Kirby, the spokesman for the National Security Council, at the White House. Credit...Drew Angerer/Getty Images

The United States on Friday said it was opposed to a Chinese proposal for an immediate cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine because it would cement the position of the troops of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

“A cease-fire now is, again, effectively the ratification of Russian conquest,” John F. Kirby, a spokesman for the National Security Council, told reporters, responding to an expected meeting next week between Mr. Putin and Xi Jinping, China’s top leader.

“It would, in effect, recognize Russia’s gains and its attempt to conquer its neighbor’s territory by force, allowing Russian troops to continue to occupy sovereign Ukrainian territory,” Mr. Kirby said.

The call for a cease-fire is part of a multipart peace proposal put forward by Mr. Xi, who heads to Russia for the meeting next week. The United States has long encouraged the Chinese government to play a constructive role in helping to end the war in Ukraine.

But Mr. Kirby expressed doubt that Mr. Xi’s meeting next week in Russia represents a genuine effort at peacemaking. He repeated that American officials were concerned that China is seriously considering an effort to directly provide lethal weapons to Russia for use in the war.

And he said that any meaningful meeting about peace would have to include President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine as well.

“We also hope that President Xi will reach out to President Zelensky directly because we continue to believe that it’s very important that he hears from the Ukrainian side as well,” Mr. Kirby added. “And not just from Mr. Putin and not just from a Russian perspective.”

Mr. Kirby said he would not speak for Mr. Zelensky, who has in the past rejected the idea of an immediate cease-fire for similar reasons. But he made clear that the United States would counsel the leader of Ukraine to be wary of signing on to one at this point in the conflict.

“We certainly don’t support calls for a cease-fire that would be called for by the P.R.C. and a meeting in Moscow that would simply benefit Russia,” Mr. Kirby said, using the acronym for the Chinese government.

Marc Santora
March 17, 2023, 8:44 a.m. ET

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine

More MIG fighters will help Ukraine, but what Kyiv really wants are F-16s.

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F-16 fighter jets taking part in a NATO exercise in Poland, in October 2022.Credit...Radoslaw Jozwiak/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s fighter pilots have helped to keep Russia from controlling the skies above the battlefield in the yearlong war. But the fact remains that Russia’s air force dwarfs Ukraine’s and its pilots have far superior technology.

The addition of more than a dozen Soviet-designed MIG fighter jets from Poland and Slovakia will certainly help Ukraine, which has seen dozens of aircraft shot down or worn out after more than a year of combat. But Ukrainian officials and military analysts do not expect the MIGs pledged so far to fundamentally alter the battle in the skies.

Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian air force, said new MIGs would not “radically change” the situation on the front lines. Most of Slovakia’s MIG-29 warplanes are not working, so they are likely to be used mainly for spare parts.

“To some extent, this will increase our combat capabilities,” he said in an appearance on Ukrainian national television Friday morning. “But one should not forget that these are still Soviet and not modern Western aircraft.”

Ukraine primarily uses its limited number of fighter jets to provide cover for bombers and assault aircraft striking Russian positions, Mr. Ihnat said in a recent interview with Channel 24, a Ukrainian news outlet.

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A MIG-29 fighter jet in Slovakia.Credit...Jaroslav Novak/TASR Slovakia, via Associated Press

Ukrainian engineers have also figured out how to attach Western-made anti-radar missiles to its existing fleet of MIGs, allowing Kyiv to better target Russian radar and air-defense systems. The High-speed Anti-Radiation Missiles, known as HARMs, pose a threat to Russian air defense operators, in many cases forcing them to turn off their radar and lie low while Ukrainian MIGs are in the air — thus creating more freedom of movement for other Ukrainian aircraft.

But these missions are still fraught with danger for Ukrainian pilots.

“To successfully complete the task, they must go deep into the enemy’s defenses,” Mr. Ihnat said. “It is very dangerous to fly deep into the enemy’s defenses and you need to stick closer to the ground. And if you don’t do this, you will easily become prey.”

Ukraine has lost 61 planes since the war began, including 18 MIG-29s, according to the military analysis site Oryx, which only counts losses that it has visually confirmed. Over the same period, Russia has lost 79 aircraft, according to the group, whose analysts believe the real numbers for both sides are most likely far greater.

Mr. Ihnat said that Moscow’s fleet of attack aircraft is five times larger than Ukraine’s, and “much more technological.”

He and other Ukrainian officials have said that the country should focus on acquiring one type of advanced fighter, and that the F-16 remained the best option. Many nations employ the F-16, meaning the United States would not have to supply them directly, although it does need to approve any transfers to Ukraine from other countries. The Biden administration has declined to send F-16s but has not ruled out deciding later to provide them or allowing another country to do so.

The Ukrainian argument is that the F-16 is better than the MIG at shooting down cruise missiles because of its powerful radar and modern missiles, and could offer vastly more protection from Russian bombardment.

“It has a weapons system tied to that radar that can engage the vast majority of Russian aircraft long before they can attack it,” Greg Bagwell, a former British Royal Air Force commander who is president of the Air and Space Power Association, said in a recent interview with Radio Liberty.

“It’s tiny, it’s hard to see on radar, it’s even harder to see in the air with the naked eye,” he said of the F-16, adding: “It’s a vicious, nasty, dangerous little airplane.”

A correction was made on 
March 17, 2023

An earlier version of a picture caption with this article described incorrectly MIG-29 fighter jets. They are Soviet-designed, not American-designed. 

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Valerie Hopkins
March 17, 2023, 7:22 a.m. ET

Russia plans to give awards to the fighter pilots who took on the U.S. Reaper drone.

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A Russian Su-27 fighter approaching the back of the American MQ-9 Reaper drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday as seen in a still image taken from a government handout video.Credit...U.S. Department of Defense, via Associated Press

Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Friday it would give state awards to the pilots of two Su-27 fighter jets that forced a $32 million American reconnaissance drone into the depths of the Black Sea on Tuesday, an incident that escalated tensions between the two superpowers.

The ministry announced in a statement that Defense Minister Sergei K. Shoigu would decorate the pilots for preventing “the violation by the American MQ-9 unmanned aerial vehicle of the boundaries” of airspace that Russia says it has restricted.

The Kremlin has said that the incident was caused by U.S. noncompliance with a flight restriction zone declared by Russia. The United States has said the drone was flying in international airspace and called its interception “unsafe” and “unprofessional.”

The Pentagon released video of the incident on Thursday showing two high-speed passes by two Russian Su-27 fighter jets, which spray a substance the Defense Department says is jet fuel on the MQ-9 Reaper drone. On a final pass, one of the Russian jets collides with the drone, the Pentagon says, and the camera feed is lost for about 60 seconds. The footage that was released does not show the collision.

The video then resumes, showing the aircraft’s damaged propeller, which the Pentagon said was struck by the Russian jet. Moscow has denied that its planes came into contact with the drone.

On Thursday, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it would try to salvage the downed drone. State news media, citing an unnamed official, said an underwater robot had detected the remnants of the drone about 40 miles from the port city of Sevastopol, on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, at a depth of about half a mile underwater.

Steven Erlanger
March 17, 2023, 5:42 a.m. ET

Turkey’s Erdogan endorses Finland’s NATO bid.

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President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, and Finland’s president, Sauli Niinisto, in Ankara, Turkey, on Friday.Credit...Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Press Office, via Reuters

Turkey announced on Friday that it would move to ratify Finland’s application to join NATO, clearing a significant hurdle for the Nordic nation’s bid to join the alliance but leaving neighboring Sweden on the sidelines for now.

“We decided to start the ratification process in our Parliament for Finland’s membership,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey told a news conference, saying he hoped the vote would take place before elections in mid-May.

The announcement came as Finland’s president, Sauli Niinisto, met in Ankara with Mr. Erdogan. The leaders had both telegraphed that the announcement was coming, with Mr. Erdogan saying this week that Turkey would “keep our promise.”

For Finland to join NATO after decades of military nonalignment would be a major shift in the balance of power in the region between the Western military alliance and Russia. It represents a significant diplomatic and strategic defeat for Moscow and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

Mr. Putin made clear before invading Ukraine last year that his intention was to block NATO’s expansion. But his invasion instead convinced Finnish and Swedish leaders that there was no real security guarantee for them outside the alliance.

Finland has a border of some 830 miles with Russia, the longest border with the country of any European Union nation, and an extensive history of resisting Moscow’s hegemony. Favoring self-reliance, Finland did not shrink its military after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and 10 months ago it pulled a more reluctant Sweden along to apply to join NATO.

But Mr. Erdogan has been blocking them, claiming that Sweden has become a haven for Kurdish separatists and other dissidents he considers terrorists. So far, Stockholm’s efforts to satisfy him, including a new terrorism law, have failed.

The Turkish president has intermittently demanded the extradition of more than 120 people now in Sweden, as he did again on Friday. Talks will likely continue in the hope that Turkey will finally approve Sweden’s membership bid after the Turkish elections in May, but before NATO’s summit meeting in Lithuania in mid-July.

Mr. Erdogan’s decision opens the way for Turkey’s Parliament to ratify Finland’s membership in the alliance, which requires unanimous approval from the 30 nations in the bloc. Hungary is the only other country whose Parliament has not ratified the bids by Finland or Sweden. Its leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orban, has vacillated on when the Hungarian Parliament will vote, although he insists that Hungary has no objection to membership of either Nordic country.

With elections in Finland on April 2, the country’s current government decided to pass all necessary legislation to join NATO in order to prevent any period of uncertainty while a new government is formed. So the only votes outstanding rest with the Turkish and Hungarian Parliaments.

On Friday, Mr. Niinisto thanked Mr. Erdogan for the move to ratify but told the news conference that Finland’s membership “is not complete without Sweden.”

The Turkish leader faces a tough election battle in mid-May with a ropy economy and high inflation, as well as criticism about his government’s handling of the recent devastating earthquake. The battle against Kurdish terrorism is popular politics in Turkey and plays well among opposition voters, too. And Turks in general like the attention and leverage that Mr. Erdogan’s unpredictability often provides.

Hungary has wielded its veto power within the European Union over sanctions against Russia to try to secure concessions on other issues, and analysts say Mr. Orban appears to be doing the same thing over Finland and Sweden joining NATO. Mr. Orban is also known to be annoyed by criticism of Hungary within the European Union from Sweden and Finland.

Johanna Lemola, Gulsin Harman and Anushka Patil contributed reporting.

A correction was made on 
March 24, 2023

An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to Finland’s border with Russia. Finland has the longest border with Russia of any European Union nation, not of any European nation.

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March 17, 2023, 5:16 a.m. ET

Ukraine is burning through artillery shells in Bakhmut, which could jeopardize any spring push.

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Ukrainian troops firing toward Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, this month.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
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The 80th Air Assault Brigade fired a British howitzer toward Russian positions in Bakhmut recently.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times
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Soldiers from the 71st Separate Hunting Brigade of the Air Assault Forces on the front line in the Donetsk region of Ukraine.Credit...Tyler Hicks/The New York Times

The Ukrainian military is firing thousands of artillery shells a day as it tries to hold the eastern city of Bakhmut, a pace that American and European officials say is unsustainable and could jeopardize a planned springtime campaign that they hope will prove decisive.

The bombardment has been so intense that the Pentagon raised concerns with Kyiv recently after several days of nonstop artillery firing, two U.S. officials said, highlighting the tension between Ukraine’s decision to defend Bakhmut at all costs and its hopes for retaking territory in the spring. One of those officials said the Americans warned Ukraine against wasting ammunition at a key time.

With so much riding on a Ukrainian counteroffensive, the United States and Britain are preparing to ship thousands of NATO and Soviet-type artillery rounds and rockets to help shore up supplies for a coming Ukrainian offensive.

But a senior American defense official described that as a “last-ditch effort” because Ukraine’s allies do not have enough ammunition to keep up with Ukraine’s pace and their stocks are critically low. Western manufacturers are ramping up production, but it will take many months for new supplies to begin meeting demand.

This has put Kyiv in an increasingly perilous position: Its troops are likely to have one meaningful opportunity this year to go on the offensive, push back Russian forces and retake land that was occupied after the invasion began last year. And they will probably have do it while contending with persistent ammunition shortages.

Natalia Yermak contributed reporting.

David PiersonVivian Wang
March 17, 2023, 3:40 a.m. ET

Xi and Putin will meet and hold a news conference on Monday.

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President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, in Beijing last year, in a photo from Russian state news media.Credit...Sputnik, via Reuters

China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, will travel to Russia to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin next week in a visit that could have broad implications for Moscow’s war in Ukraine and the troubled relationship between Beijing and Washington.

Mr. Xi is expected to make a state visit to Russia from Monday to Wednesday, China’s Foreign Ministry and the Kremlin said in statements. It will be his first visit to Russia since the country launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than a year ago.

Mr. Xi’s trip will be watched closely by leaders in the United States and Europe who are frustrated with China’s diplomatic and economic support for Russia. Although the two nations have not declared a formal alliance, Beijing maintains deep strategic ties with Moscow as a like-minded nuclear-armed power that seeks to weaken Washington’s geopolitical dominance. Just three weeks before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Mr. Putin visited Beijing, where the two leaders declared a “no limits” friendship.

In recent weeks, the Biden administration has warned that China is considering escalating its support for Russia by providing weapons for it to use in Ukraine, an accusation that Beijing has denied.

Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin will meet on Monday afternoon in Moscow for a one-on-one conversation and lunch, and the two leaders will also hold a news conference, said the Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov.

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin, said that Mr. Xi would use the visit to increase the “mutual trust and understanding” between the two countries, which he said had “established a new paradigm for international relations.”

At the same time, China would seek to play a mediating role between Russia and Ukraine, he said.

“President Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia this time is also for peace,” Mr. Wang said when asked whether Mr. Xi would try to push Mr. Putin to seek a political settlement with Ukraine. “China’s proposition can be summed up in one sentence, which is to persuade peace and promote talks.”

He also implicitly criticized Western nations’ tough approach to punishing Russia, saying that “unilateral sanctions” and “extreme pressure” would only worsen the crisis. The Kremlin said that talks between Mr. Putin and Mr. Xi would center on the “comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation” between the two countries.

China has cast itself as a rare neutral party well positioned to negotiate a political settlement between Ukraine and Russia. The country recently released a position paper calling for an end to the war, but the document was widely criticized by Western leaders for lacking concrete plans and avoiding demands that could hurt China’s close ties with Russia.

Mr. Xi has sought to burnish his image as a global statesman, most notably with the announcement last week that Beijing had brokered a surprise deal to restore diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran. That agreement came after extensive talks in which both sides had expressed a willingness to mend ties.

Mediating in the war in Ukraine would be a far greater challenge, with neither Ukraine nor Russia appearing ready to negotiate an end to the fighting. Many Western leaders are skeptical about Mr. Xi’s intentions because of his conflicting goals and interests. Beijing has never criticized Russia’s invasion and parrots the Kremlin’s assertion that NATO provoked the war.

It is unclear whether Mr. Xi will also meet or speak separately with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.

On Thursday, the foreign ministers of Ukraine and China spoke over the phone in a rare official contact. Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said the two discussed “the principle of territorial integrity.” China said its foreign minister, Qin Gang, told his Ukrainian counterpart that Beijing would “continue to play a constructive role in bringing an end to the conflict, mitigating the crisis and restoring peace.”

Mr. Qin said China was concerned the conflict was dragging on and could “spiral out of control.” He urged both sides to “exercise restraint” and “resume peace talks as soon as possible,” according to the ministry, while referring to the situation in Ukraine as a “crisis” rather than a war.

Mr. Wang, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, did not directly answer when asked if the foreign ministers had discussed potential contact between Mr. Xi and Mr. Zelensky, saying only that China continued to “maintain communication with all parties.”

Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said on Monday that the United States had been encouraging Mr. Xi to speak to Mr. Zelensky, in part to discourage China from supplying Russia with arms.

“It would potentially bring more balance and perspective to the way that the P.R.C. is approaching this,” Mr. Sullivan said, using an abbreviation for the People’s Republic of China. “And we hope it would continue to dissuade them from choosing to provide lethal assistance to Russia.”

In addition to the war in Ukraine, Mr. Xi will also discuss with Mr. Putin how to continue strengthening cooperation between their countries, Mr. Wang said. Asked whether Russia and China would seek a formal alliance, Mr. Wang said they were interested in a “new type of major power relations.”

“This is completely different from the practice of some countries, which cling to a cold war mentality, gang up, engage in ‘small circle’ and factional confrontations, and bully all over the place,” he said.

Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting.

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