THE HAGUE (AP) – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the Netherlands on Thursday for a surprise visit to the city, which is home to the International Criminal Court that issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Zelensky’s visit to The Hague, home of the ICC and the UN’s supreme judicial body, the International Court of Justice, comes a day after he denied Ukrainian forces were responsible for the Kremlin’s attempt to target and assassinate Putin. It was conducted. by drone attack.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to Helsinki on Wednesday, Zelensky said:
“We didn’t attack Putin. Leave it to the court.”
Although Zelensky’s visit to the ICC has not been officially confirmed, court officials hoisted the Ukrainian flag alongside their own in front of the building on Thursday. The Ukrainian Air Force Command said early Thursday morning that Russian forces used Iranian-made drones to strike overnight in several areas of Ukraine. Air raid sirens blared through the night in Ukraine, with explosions reported from the southern city of Odessa and capital .
The Ukrainian military said three drones labeled “for Moscow” and “for the Kremlin” hit a dormitory at an educational facility in Odessa, citing a suspected Ukrainian attack on Wednesday. However, the fire was quickly extinguished and no one was injured.Kiev has been hit by drones and rockets, according to the military government, in the third air raid on the capital in four days.
Against this backdrop of violence, Zelensky visits The Hague, which calls itself an international city of peace and justice.
In its March 18 statement, the ICC said Putin was “responsible for the war crimes of illegal deportation (of children) and illegal transfer of (children) from occupied territories of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
But Putin is unlikely to be sent to The Hague. The court has no police force to enforce an arrest warrant, and the Russian president is unlikely to go to the ICC’s 123 member states, so he needs to be arrested.
ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan has made repeated visits to Ukraine and has set up his office in Kiev to facilitate ongoing investigations in the country.
But the ICC does not have the jurisdiction to indict Putin for aggression. The Dutch government has offered to host a court that may be set up to try the crime of aggression, and an office will be set up to collect evidence. Eurojust, the European Union’s legal cooperation agency, announced in February that a new international center for the prosecution of crimes of aggression would be operational by the summer.
President Zelensky’s visit to The Hague comes as Russia’s claims that it thwarted an attack on the Kremlin by Ukrainian drones early Wednesday morning continue to be called into question. The Russian government branded it an attempted assassination of President Putin and promised reprisals for what it called “terrorist” acts.
There were no immediate reports of airstrikes on the Ukrainian capital, although air raid sirens rang out in Kiev through the night.
Putin was not in the Kremlin at the time, but was at his residence in Novo-Ogaryovo, a Moscow suburb, his spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russia’s state-run news agency RIA Novosti. Russian officials claim the attack took place overnight, but have provided no evidence to support it. Questions also surfaced as to why it took the Kremlin hours to report the incident and why the video was released later in the day.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said the United States “has not been able to verify the credibility” of Russia’s claims about Ukraine’s attack on Moscow. Asked whether the United States believed Putin was a possible legitimate target for a Ukrainian attack, Jean-Pierre said that since the conflict began, the United States had “not allowed Ukraine to strike across its borders.” We didn’t encourage or allow it,” he said.
