A court spells out what’s at stake in Ukraine

On Friday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and a key aide for their role in the taking of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia since the start of the war a year ago. Mr. Putin does not deny that the children were taken, that they are being taught Russian, and that they will be adopted by Russians. Rather, the Kremlin claims the children were taken for safety from the fighting.

But, says ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, Mr. Putin must be tried for the abduction of  children across borders – a war crime. “The evidence will tell a different story,” he told a conference in London on Monday. He asked Moscow to repatriate the children and let them learn their own language in their own schools and not be adopted “by strangers.”

“The quite important elements of the offense are accepted by the individuals concerned,” he said.

The arrest warrants are a direct challenge to Mr. Putin’s notion that Ukraine has long been united with Russia by “blood ties,” or, as one people forming a special civilization with its own values rising from factors like language, ethnicity, and race.

The ICC, as well as Ukraine’s government, insists that Mr. Putin abide by values in international law. “The world needs a real embodiment of the rule of law, which is guaranteed to protect humanity from the ‘right of force’ – from the source or all aggressions,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this month.

The Geneva Conventions prohibit the forced transfer of people from occupied territories like those in eastern Ukraine under Russian control. Children, Mr. Khan said, “can’t be treated as spoils of war.” 

The ICC is not the only body challenging Russia’s rejection of universal justice. In an emergency session of the U.N. General Assembly last month, 141 nations backed a resolution demanding that Mr. Putin withdraw his forces from Ukraine and international laws be observed.

“If we can’t show that international justice can play a role [in Ukraine] when the world seems on a precipice – and I don’t think that’s hyperbole – then there will be no confidence in international institutions,” Mr. Khan told The Times of London.

The warrants mark just the third time that the ICC has sought the arrest of a head of state. Mr. Putin is unlikely to face a trial at The Hague unless his own people hand him over or he travels to any of the 123 countries that are signatories to the statute establishing the ICC.

Yet the court’s action sends a signal to Russians that the world embraces a universal type of civilization, one with values defined not by ethnicity but by principles of law applicable to all, especially innocent children.