Vladimir Putin defies ICC arrest warrant with official trip to Mongolia

Vladimir Putin is set to once again expose the weaknesses of international justice. The Russian leader is scheduled to make an official trip to Mongolia Tuesday in what will be his first visit to a signatory country of the Rome Statute since an arrest warrant was issued against him over alleged war crimes in Ukraine by the International Criminal Court (ICC). Despite this, the Kremlin issued a message of calm: “All the details of the president’s visit have been carefully prepared, of course,” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Putin landed in Ulaanbaatar late Monday night, where he was greeted by a welcoming procession.

The ICC issued an international arrest warrant for the Russian president in March 2023 for the forcible deportation of Ukrainian minors, the same war crime for which it also demanded the arrest of Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova. They were the first senior Russian officials to be cited by the ICC, but in June 2024 the court also issued arrest warrants for former Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu and Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov for the shelling of civilians.

Putin has been invited by Mongolian President Khürelsükh Ukhnaa to attend a military parade on the anniversary of the 1939 Battles of Khalkhin Gol, in which the USSR stopped the expansionism of the Japanese Empire on its borders. However, it is today’s pressing needs that are forcing Putin to risk leaving the Kremlin. China has become Russia’s economic breathing space and Moscow is trying to sell Beijing the gas it has stopped supplying to the European Union, its main customer until the invasion of Ukraine, after it was cut off by sanctions.

The Mongolian government is demanding fuel from Moscow at a significant discount. In exchange, Ulaanbaatar would offer its territory for the construction of the Soyuz Vostok gas pipeline between Russia and China. The pipeline, still a draft on paper, is a key part of a much larger project between Moscow and Beijing that remains up in the air due to a lack of interest on the part of China: the Power of Siberia-2 gas pipeline.

Putin’s official visit came days after Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post newspaper reported that Mongolia had left out this pipeline from its list of projects for the next four years. “We always respond to our Mongolian friends’ requests for assistance in meeting the growing needs for fuel and lubricants at preferential prices,” Putin told the Mongolian daily Onoodor before embarking on his trip.

The ICC arrest warrant is a considerable headache for the Kremlin. Putin decided at the last minute not to attend the BRICS summit in Johannesburg in August 2023 because of the risk involved. The South African government, a member of the International Criminal Court, offered no assurances to the Russian leader and a court in the country ruled that he should be detained.

Mongolia’s permissiveness has outraged Ukraine and international human rights organizations. “Without its own police force, the ICC must rely on states and the international community to assist in arrests,” Human Rights Watch denounced. The NGO has demanded that Mongolia deny entry to Putin, or arrest the Russian president. Its lawyer specializing in international law, Maria Elena Vignoli, stressed the damage to universal justice when a leader responsible for starting a war is allowed to roam the world. “Welcoming Putin, an ICC fugitive, would not only be an affront to the many victims of Russian forces’ crimes, but would also undermine the crucial principle that no one, no matter how powerful, is above the law,” she said.

Strategic territory

Mongolia is not often in the news, but it is a strategic enclave in Asia. Politically pluralistic — its former president Elbegdorj Tsakhia (2009-2017) publicly encourages Buryat Russians to flee to Mongolia and openly supports Ukraine, while recalling that Moscow was once a Mongol Khanate — several heavyweights of Western diplomacy have passed through Ulaanbaatar in recent months.

These include U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who visited a few weeks ago, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and French leader Emmanuel Macron in 2023. Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida was also due to visit the country in August, but cancelled the trip due to the threat of an earthquake.

Mongolia ratified the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court in 2002. The Kremlin, however, never ratified its accession and finally revoked its signature in 2016, as did the United States, China, and Israel.

While calling for a “just international order,” Moscow has justified its war crimes in Ukraine by comparing itself to those committed by the United States in Iraq, or Israel in Gaza. In fact, the ICC Prosecutor’s Office asked in May this year for another arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes in Gaza. Before Putin, only two presidents worldwide, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and the late Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, had been wanted by the ICC.

The Mongolian authorities’ condescension to Putin’s visit has rendered useless the manifesto signed in June by 93 states urging signatories to “preserve [the ICC’s] integrity from any political interference and pressure.” The statement called for compliance with international arrest warrants: “We therefore call on all States to ensure full cooperation with the Court for it to carry out its important mandate of ensuring equal justice for all victims of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression; grave crimes that threaten the peace, security and well-being of the world.”

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