The tribunal has accused two senior officers of war crimes allegedly committed during the Ukraine conflict
An arrest warrant for senior Russian military commanders issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) is null and void, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, as Moscow does not recognize The Hague-based tribunal.
On Tuesday, the ICC accused Lieutenant-General Sergey Kobylash of the Long-Range Aviation fleet and Admiral Viktor Sokolov of Russia’s Black Sea fleet of “war crimes.”
The tribunal claimed that the officers were responsible for “directing attacks at civilian objects,” causing “excessive incidental harm to civilians.”
According to the statement, Kobylash and Sokolov were complicit in a barrage “against the Ukrainian electric infrastructure from at least October 10, 2022 until at least March 9, 2023.”
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Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Peskov noted that Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute that established the ICC in the first place, and “does not recognize” the court’s authority.
He said this was not the first ICC ruling targeting Russian officials. “We also know that there are different closed processes underway that are kept secret,” he added.
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