Vladimir Putin visited the Ukrainian city of Mariupol in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic. According to reports from the Kremlin's press service, the Russian president "inspected a number of places in the city and spoke with local residents", Moscow explains, adding that "he went to Mariupol by helicopter; he drove a vehicle along the streets of the city, stopping at several locations".
A few days ago the Russian military administration inaugurated a helicopter platform on the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, a defense stronghold for months according to the Kremlin, Putin also held a meeting in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don with military leaders in the command post of the "special military operation" underway in Ukraine.
But in these hours, after the sensational decision to issue an arrest warrant against the number one of the Kremlin and the commissioner Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova on charges of illegal deportation of Ukrainian children, he is the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court himself, Karim Khan, to clarify what many have wondered in these hours, namely whether that decision can really materialize in something more than a "signal" albeit strong but abstract: Khan recalled the historic trials against the criminals of war Nazis, former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic and former Liberian leader Charles Taylor, citing them as examples of seemingly untouchable figures who had to face justice.
Putin, he added, could actually be tried despite Moscow claiming it is not subject to the decisions of the Hague Court.
(Unioneonline/ss)
