Anastasia Pechenyuk21:13, 20.03.23

The country did not sign the joint statement of the ministers of justice of the EU.

Hungary has blocked the joint statement of European Union member states regarding the arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin. Due to Budapest’s veto, EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell instead issued a statement on his own behalf , Bloomberg reports citing sources.

On Monday, EU justice ministers also published their own statement in support of the International Criminal Court decision, which Hungary did not sign.

Borrell’s spokesman declined to comment, saying the EU’s foreign affairs service does not comment on internal working methods.

It will be recalled that Borrell’s statement  stated that the bloc considers the decision of the International Court of Justice as the beginning of the process of holding Russian leaders accountable for the crimes and atrocities they order, allow or commit in Ukraine.

Putin’s arrest warrant 

Last week, the International Criminal Court in The Hague decided to issue a warrant for the arrest of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. He and children’s ombudsman Maria Lvova-Belova are considered guilty of the deportation of Ukrainian children to the Russian Federation. Therefore, 123 member countries of the Rome Statute must arrest Putin if he is on their territory. What’s more, as noted by ICC prosecutor Karim Khan, the warrant is for life.

Putin’s spokesman Dmytro Peskov initially stated that the Kremlin does not take this decision to heart . At the same time, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation initiated a criminal case against the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Ahmad Khan and three judges.

The German authorities have declared that they will certainly arrest Putin if he enters the country . At the same time, South Africa, to which the Russian president was going to visit in August, did not express a firm readiness to detain him, as required by the ICC. It said it would “cooperate with various relevant stakeholders.”

(C)UNIAN 2023