Arresting Vladimir Putin would be a declaration of war, Russia warned after the International Criminal Court issued an international arrest warrant against him.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council and former president, said that should Germany – or any other nation – arrest the despot, it would unleash a nuclear strike on the offending country.
Medvedev has notably attacked German Justice Minister Marco Buschmann, who said last week that Putin would be arrested on the basis of the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant if he visited Germany.
“Let’s imagine … the leader of a nuclear power visits the territory of Germany and is arrested,” said Medvedev, adding that this would amount to a declaration of war. “In this case, our fortune flies to the Bundestag, the Chancellery and so on.”
Noting that Russia’s nuclear forces are a powerful deterrent amidst fighting in Ukraine, he added that “without them we would have been blown to bits”.
The arrest of Vladimir Putin (pictured March 16 in Moscow) on war crimes charges would be counted as a declaration of war, Russia has warned after the International Criminal Court issued an international arrest warrant for him
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council and former president, said that should Germany – or any other nation – arrest the despot, it would unleash a nuclear strike on the offending country. Pictured: A Sarmat-2 nuclear missile is tested in Russia
Despite the stance, Medvedev also said today that Russia does not plan to enter a direct conflict with NATO and is interested in solving the Ukraine war through talks.
However, he warned that any Ukrainian attempt to seize the Crimean Peninsula — which Moscow annexed in 2014 — would be grounds for Russia to use “absolutely any weapon” against Kiev.
Moscow has reacted furiously to the International Criminal Court’s international arrest warrant for Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, saying it does not recognize the court while opening its own investigation into the court.
Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the Kremlin-funded media outlet RT, also warned last week that Russia would use nuclear weapons against any country that dared arrest Putin.
Neither Simonyan nor Medvedev said how Russia would avoid killing Putin with its own nuclear weapons should Moscow launch strikes against the country where he was arrested.
Medvedev, 57, said in a statement on Thursday that charges against Putin for alleged involvement in the kidnapping of thousands of children from Ukraine are legally void.
He noted that the move adds “colossal negative potential” to already bitterly strained relations between Russia and the West. “Our relations with the West are already worse than at any time in history,” he said.
Asked if the threat of nuclear conflict has diminished, Medvedev replied in video comments: “No, it hasn’t decreased, it’s increased. Every day they deliver foreign arms to Ukraine, the nuclear apocalypse draws closer.”
Medvedev has made a spate of such strongly worded statements in the past, blasting the US and its NATO allies for what he called their efforts to crush and destroy Russia.
It was a drastic metamorphosis for the mild-mannered politician who was once hailed as a liberal hope by the West.
Medvedev also questioned Ukraine’s sovereignty in comments that may reflect Moscow’s plans to expand its gains.
“Frankly, Ukraine belongs to Russia,” he falsely said, parroting one of the Kremlin’s lines as Moscow’s armies invaded Ukraine last year.
“But for geopolitical reasons and the course of history, we had long tolerated living in separate quarters and were forced to honor these fabricated boundaries.”
The West says Russia’s years-long invasion of Ukraine is an imperialist land grab fueled by Putin’s ambition to expand its borders and obliterate a sovereign country.
The soft-spoken and mild-mannered Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012 when Putin was forced to step down to the post of prime minister because of term limits, was widely viewed by Western officials as more liberal than his mentor.
Medvedev, 57 (pictured in Moscow on Tuesday) issued a statement Thursday calling the charges against Putin for alleged involvement in the kidnapping of thousands of children from Ukraine legally void
Many in the West expected Medvedev to win a second term and further soften the Kremlin’s policies, but he resigned to allow Putin to retake the presidency in what Kremlin critics denounced as cynical manipulation.
Since Putin sent troops to Ukraine more than a year ago, Medvedev, a law school graduate, has emerged as one of Russia’s most combative officials.
He regularly churns out stormy remarks that combine Latin mottos and legal phrases with four-letter words, sounding much tougher than those of old Kremlin hardliners. Observers interpret Medvedev’s rhetoric as an obvious attempt to ingratiate himself with Putin.
Medvedev launched more anti-Western diatribes on Thursday, declaring that “it is pointless to engage in talks” with the West and spoke with contempt for Western politicians, claiming a “catastrophic decline in the competence and elementary education of European Union leaders.” .
“I have no illusions that we may be able to communicate with them again any time soon,” he said. “There is no point in negotiating with certain countries and blocs – they only understand the language of violence.”
Medvedev, who heads a Security Council body that coordinates arms production, ridiculed Western statements claiming that Russia was running out of arms and accused the Russian arms industry of ramping up production.
He said Russia will produce 1,500 main battle tanks this year alone and increase production of other weapons to meet army needs. His claims could not be independently verified.
“The most important thing now is to produce everything in the necessary quantities, and for this we are opening new factories,” Medvedev said.
He said that the Russian military already has good intelligence drones and munitions lying around, but acknowledged that it has yet to deploy long-range strike drones.
Medvedev drew parallels with World War II, when the Soviet Union managed to drastically ramp up arms production. He noted that while examining historical archives, he found telegrams from Soviet leader Joseph Stalin urging directors of arms factories to increase production under threat of reprisals.
In a video fragment from his meeting with top factory managers released Thursday, Medvedev read out one of those telegrams, in which Stalin called for a tank factory to meet production plans and warned:
“If you violate your duty to the Motherland, I will destroy you as criminals who forget their honor and interests of the Motherland.”
Medvedev added: “I want you to hear me and remember the generalissimo’s words. As you can understand, the results were quite impressive and if there weren’t any, you understand what happened.’
Medvedev’s comments came as authorities in Hungary said they would not arrest Putin if he entered the country, despite the ICC’s arrest warrant.
Moscow has reacted furiously to the International Criminal Court’s international arrest warrant for Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, saying it does not recognize the court while opening its own investigation into the court. Pictured: ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan (centre) speaks during the Justice Ministers’ Conference in support of the court and its inquiry into the situation in Ukraine, in London, March 20, 2023
Gergely Gulyas, chief of staff to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, told reporters in Budapest that arresting Putin would violate Hungarian law because the country has not incorporated the statute of the International Criminal Court into its legal system.
Gulyas said the statute of the International Criminal Court, of which Hungary is a part, contradicts the Hungarian constitution and thus arresting Putin would violate Hungarian law. Orban’s government has yet to comment on the arrest warrant, but Gulyas said he sees it as counterproductive.
“I think these decisions are not the happiest because they lead to escalation and not peace,” he said.
The likelihood of Putin being tried in The Hague is highly unlikely as Moscow does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court or extradites its nationals.
However, the warrant could limit the Russian leader’s ability to travel to the tribunal’s 123 member states, which could arrest him under the warrant.
The laws under which the ICC operates do not allow leaders to be tried in absentia, and therefore they must be arrested and tried in person.
But Kiev’s top prosecutor said Thursday the Russian leader should be tried for invading Ukraine even if he can’t be arrested and brought to justice.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin told Portal during a stopover in The Hague, where the International Criminal Court is based, that a planned tribunal for the crime of aggression should hold so-called absentee trials.
Kostin was speaking after a meeting with the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, who last week issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin, charging him and his children’s commissioner with the war crime of deporting children from Ukraine to Russia.
The rapid work of prosecutors and cooperation with the International Criminal Court “was the reason for such a rapid response to one of the most serious war crimes of this war, the forced deportation and kidnapping” of children, Kostin said.
While the ICC can prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in Ukraine, it cannot prosecute the crime of aggression due to legal restrictions.
International support is growing for the creation of a special tribunal that would prosecute the Russian leadership itself for the 13-month-old invasion, which Ukraine and Western leaders see as a crime of aggression.
The special tribunal should “prosecute the highest political and military leadership, including Putin, for the crime of aggression,” Kostin said.
“I think it could take place in absentia because it’s important to deliver justice for international crimes even when the perpetrators aren’t in the dock.”
International courts very rarely conduct trials in absentia, and the rules of the International Criminal Court specifically state that an accused suspect must be present during the trial.
The only recent example of an international trial in absentia was the Lebanon case, in which a UN-backed tribunal convicted three men for the 2005 assassination of Lebanese politician Rafik Hariri.
A Dutch court last year convicted three men – two Russians and one Ukrainian – for shooting down Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014. None of the suspects were present in court.
In a gesture of defiance, Russia’s top investigative body said Monday it had opened a criminal case against the ICC prosecutor and judges who issued an arrest warrant for Putin that Moscow called outrageous and legally void.
Russia has publicly stated that it has brought thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia as part of a humanitarian campaign to protect orphans and abandoned children in the conflict zone.
Kostin also said his office collects evidence for the most difficult crime to prove, genocide, which requires proving that there was an intent to eliminate all or part of a particular group.
He said the crimes documented so far, including killings, torture, sexual violence, shelling of civilian targets and illegal arrests, were at least “equivalent to crimes against humanity” and had been reported in the Russian-occupied territories.
“We have carefully collected evidence that we believe will establish the case of genocide,” he said. Kostin said “it will take some time” before this case can be brought to court, adding, “but our work will continue.”
Kostin’s comments came as Ukraine and the ICC signed a treaty for a field office to prove war crimes in Ukraine. He said the agreement for an ICC office in Ukraine was the “beginning of a new chapter” in Kyiv’s cooperation with the court.
The likelihood of Putin being tried in The Hague is highly unlikely as Moscow does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court or extradites its nationals. However, the warrant could limit the Russian leader’s ability to travel to the tribunal’s 123 member states, which could arrest him under the warrant. Pictured: ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan visits Bucha, site of appalling Russian war crimes, in April
“This is just a start, a strong start,” Kostin said at a signing ceremony in The Hague, according to an ICC statement.
“I am convinced that we will not stop until all perpetrators of international crimes committed in Ukraine are brought to justice, regardless of their political or military position.”
ICC Registrar Peter Lewis said the court is grateful for Ukraine’s help and looks forward to strengthening our cooperation in the future.
Ukraine becomes the latest country to host a branch of the ICC, after the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda; Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, Georgia and Mali.