Russian children’s rights commissioner says ICC war-crime allegations are too vague to verify

Russian Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova complained in a Telegram post on Wednesday that the arrest warrants issued last week by the International Criminal Court fail to specify the crimes allegedly committed by her and President Putin against Ukrainian children. Lvova-Belova says it’s impossible to verify the ICC’s accusations because the court’s public statements do not identify the supposed victims by name or address.

“We haven’t received a single request that would confirm that [these] children were separated from their parents, for example, that this or that child was […] forcibly taken to Russian territory,” she later argued at a briefing in Yekaterinburg, while also promising to investigate any future claims individually. Additionally, Lvova-Belova vowed to “do everything possible” to reunite the children relocated from Ukraine to Russia with any relatives who come forward.

On March 17, 2023, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Maria Lvova-Belova and Vladimir Putin on war-crime charges of unlawfully deporting children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. The prosecutor responsible for the arrest warrants says his office has identified “at least hundreds of children taken from orphanages and children’s care homes.”