Dmitry Kiselyov, the Russian propagandist-in-chief who rarely misses a chance to lash out at the "Russophobic” West, spent the nearly three hours of his regular state TV broadcast avoiding the subject of the arrest order for Vladimir Putin, issued by the International Criminal Court in the Hague.
That’s no oversight on his part: For all the bluster heard from other pro-Putin figures, the court’s move can have more than purely symbolic consequences.
The ICC let it be known that the charges against Putin have to do with the "unlawful transfer” of children from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine. A fresh U.N. Human Rights Council report sheds light on these accusations. While Russia claims merely to have moved the children out of harm’s way temporarily, the report says Russia violated international law in taking them to Russia: "The transfers were not justified by safety or medical reasons. There seems to be no indication that it was impossible to allow the children to relocate to territory under Ukrainian Government control. It also does not appear that Russian authorities sought to establish contact with the children’s relatives or with Ukrainian authorities.”