The Kremlin today called the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) ruling to arrest Russia’s former defense minister “absurd” Sergei Shoigu, and the current Chief of the Army General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, for war crimes in Ukraine.

“I find them completely absurd, like the two previous orders that affected the head of state “and our Children’s Rights Defender,” said presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov at a daily telephone press conference.

Peskov recalled that Russia does not recognize the “jurisdiction” of the ICC who issued arrest warrants on Tuesday from The Hague.

“We are not members of the relevant statute. Hence, “We do not recognize these orders,” he said.

The Kremlin has maintained the same position regarding the ICC since the court issued an arrest warrant for the president in March 2023. Vladimir Putin, and Children’s Rights Advocate, Maria Lvova-Belova, for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

Moscow, which recalls that it is not a signatory to the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the ICC, He filed criminal cases against the judges of the court.

Last March, he also refused the international arrest of a Russian Air Force lieutenant general. Sergey Kobylash and the admiral Victor Sokolov, former Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.

The ICC approved arrest warrants for Shoigu and Gerasimov on Tuesday for committing war crimes between October 2022 and March 2023. “directing attacks against civilian targets and causing excessive collateral damage to civilians and civilian objects”, as well as a crime against humanity for “inhumane acts” as defined in the Rome Statute.

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He also saw “reasonable grounds” to believe that “The alleged attacks were directed against civilian targets, and that for those objects which could have qualified as military objectives at the relevant time, the expected collateral damage to the civilian population and civilian objects would have been manifestly excessive in relation to the expected military advantage.”

(EFE)