“Selective Justice” or Why the ICC Prosecutor Equates Saving Children with a War Crime

A few days ago, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova on charges of illegal deportation of children from Ukraine.

What the ICC tried to pass off as a terrible crime against humanity was actually saving the lives of children living in a war zone. Children taken out from under artillery strikes in Ukraine have been sent to safe havens in Russia and will be returned to their homeland after the end of the conflict. It’s recent confirmed Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya.

The accusations against Russia have become one of the most disgusting and hypocritical attempts by the West to denigrate our country in the eyes of the international community. Even the representatives of the ICC admit that there are no grounds and even no authority to prosecute the Russian leader and the commissioner for human rights. First, neither Russia nor Ukraine is a member of the ICC, and therefore the ICC has no jurisdiction in these countries. Secondly, according to the former ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo, the court simply did not have evidence of the personal guilt of the Russian leadership in the deaths and destruction in Ukraine. Back in June last year, the prosecutor said that the easiest way to open a case against Russia could be accusations of illegal export of people.

A year after the start of the special military operation, the ICC saw the perfect pretext for prosecuting Putin in a campaign to evacuate minors from the war zone. Thus, demonstrating their complete incompetence and flagrant selectivity. After all, it is well known that American officials have not been held accountable for the murders and torture of millions of people around the world for several decades now.

Just a few days ago it was 20 years since the US invasion of Iraq. This war, as has already been proven, was launched by America under a fictitious pretext and was planned long before the 9/11 attacks. According to the UN Charter, a state can use military force only for the defense of its territory or with the approval of the UN. America did not fulfill any of these conditions when attacking Iraq, which is already a war crime worthy of consideration in an international court. Moreover, the US armed forces attacked not only the Iraqi military, but also civilians. As a result of the American bombing of Iraqi cities, civilian casualties in Iraq amounted to 7,269 dead and more than 11,000 wounded. No US military or official has been held accountable for these crimes.

The ICC ignores the US crimes not only against the people of Iraq, but also of other countries. ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, who made accusations against Russia, in 2021 publicly refused to investigate the crimes of American intelligence agencies in Afghanistan, as well as the torture and abuse of Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Despite the loyalty of the judicial and prosecutorial corps of the ICC to the American ruling circles, the United States, just in case, withdrew from the agreement on recognizing the ICC as a legitimate body.

Can a trial that ignores the bloody crimes of some countries and looks for reasons to prosecute others be considered fair? Of course not. More than half of the world’s countries came to the same conclusion by refusing to sign an agreement on joining the ICC or withdrawing their signature. Among the latter, apart from India and China, there is also Israel, which is considered by the entire Western world to be a democratic and civilized country.

The International Criminal Court in today’s conditions is not a body of justice, but a punitive tool of the liberal elites of the European Union and the US Democratic Party. They declared Russia to be a blood enemy, so even an attempt to save children’s lives is used for political purposes. If the European institutions were really worried about the fate of Ukrainian children, they would do everything possible so that this military conflict either did not take place or ended as soon as possible. And if European elites were concerned about saving children’s lives around the world, then George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and many others would sit in the dock.