Russia Releases Arrest Warrant for ICC Officials Who Issued Arrest Warrant for Putin

I know I say it a lot, but it’s (I’m sure you understand) very exciting for me that Russia now does things very much in line with what I would recommend they do.

Especially since the start of the Ukraine war, there has been a “stormerification” of Russia’s PR.

Maybe it’s just coincidental, because this stuff is obvious, but I like to think some boomers retired and some English-speaking Russian millennials who are fans of mine got their hands on some of these levers.

RT:

The Russian Internal Affairs Ministry has added International Criminal Court President Piotr Hofmanski to its wanted list for criminal violations, the news agency TASS reported on Monday.   

The ministry has also added his deputy, ICC Vice President Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza, and Judge Bertram Schmitt to the list. While the ministry’s database states that all three are “wanted under an article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation,” their specific violations are not enumerated.

In March, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for allegedly participating in the “unlawful” deportations of Ukrainian children to Russia. The warrant accuses both of bearing individual and command responsibility for the alleged offense under the ICC’s establishing treaty, the Rome Statute.

Russia has evacuated thousands of residents of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporozhye, and Kherson – four regions that overwhelmingly voted to join Russia last September – away from the combat zone, due to the deliberate shelling of civilians by Ukrainian forces, often using NATO-supplied weapons.

No one even argues that point. These “Ukrainian” (meaningless term) children are just refugees. This kidnapping thing is total retarded gibberish.

The Kremlin rejected the ICC’s warrant as null and void due to an absence of criminal liability and the court’s lack of jurisdiction in the matter. Moscow responded by opening criminal investigations into prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan and judges Tomoko Akane, Rosario Salvatore Aitala, and Sergio Gerardo Ugalde Godinez.  

Khan and Aitala have been charged with knowingly accusing an innocent person of a crime and attacking a foreign official under international protection to complicate international relations, while the other two judges who approved the prosecutor’s warrant face accusations of deliberately unlawful detention.   

“Nigga, you gonna put me on a wanted list? Well, guess what? I’m putting you on a wanted list for putting me on a wanted list!”

So good.

But it’s also serious, of course. Claiming that Russia cannot accept refugees from a neighboring country doesn’t make any sense, and attacking the head of state personally in this way, and accusing him of a crime, and then claiming you want to try to arrest him, is clearly something that would be illegal under Russian law.

The issue is obviously that the Russian warrant is just as symbolic as the ICC warrant, and historically, Russia would have responded to this warrant by just saying it’s stupid and then ignoring it.

Although it is certainly legally valid, opening an investigation into the ICC, while knowing that it is not serious in terms of an actual ability to arrest the officials, requires a certain level of wit and self-awareness. It’s a way of mocking the West. Primarily. From what I’ve seen of Russia over the last ten years, this sort of thing was not normal, and it has become normal. It is actually very much in line with Putin’s personality, which is very much defined by dry humor and a kind of smug smirk when it comes to the West.

But of course, Putin is only one man. What it seems, however, is that state policy is now conforming more to Putin’s personality, and also to what is appropriate. The West should be dismissed off-handedly as ridiculous, but it should also be laughed at.

Of course, I also believe very much that Russia should be speaking in Christian terms about the satanic nature of the West, which they are also now doing. I’m very happy with how it is all going. I think they should have studied my work as regards to the plan for the Ukraine, instead of assuming that the US couldn’t possibly be serious, but this has been course-corrected.