Russia’s President Vladimir Putin began his first visit to a member country of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Mongolia on Monday.

Stepping off the plane in the capital Ulaan Bator late on Monday, Putin was greeted by the foreign minister Batmunkh Battsetseg, rather than Mongolia’s president Ukhnaa Khurelsukh.

The official visit comes amid an international warrant for his arrest nearly 18 months ago on charges of war crimes in Ukraine.

Putin and Ukhnaa Khurelsukh are to attend a ceremony on Tuesday marking the 1939 victory of Soviet and Mongolian troops over the Japanese army that had taken control of Manchuria in northeastern China.

Thousands of soldiers died in months of fighting in a dispute over where the border was between Manchuria and Mongolia.

Before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 Mongolia was a Soviet satellite state.

EU, Ukraine call for Putin’s arrest

Calls for Putin’s arrest have grown as news emerged of his visit to the ICC member state. Ukraine called on Mongolia to arrest Putin and hand him over to the court in The Hague.

Kyiv’s foreign ministry said it “hopes that the Mongolian government will realise the fact that Vladimir Putin is a war criminal”.

The European Commission has also called on Mongolia to fulfil its obligations to the ICC and place Vladimir Putin under arrest.

“Mongolia is a state party to the Rome Statute of the ICC since 2002 with the legal obligations that it entails. We have raised our concern about the visit and stated our position of the ICC clearly via our delegation in Mongolia,” a Commission spokesperson said on Monday, referring to the treaty that underpins the tribunal.

“The EU supports the investigation by the prosecutor of the ICC in Ukraine, and we call for the cooperation by all state parties.”

A spokesperson for Putin said last week that the Kremlin isn’t worried about the visit.

Members of the international court are bound to detain suspects if an arrest warrant has been issued, but the court doesn’t have any enforcement mechanism.

Putin arrest warrant over child abductions

The ICC has accused Putin of being responsible for the abductions of children from Ukraine, where the fighting has raged for 2½ years.

Putin hasn’t travelled to ICC member states ever since the arrest was issued in March 2023. Though the Russian leader has faced international isolation over the invasion of Ukraine, he did visit North Korea and Vietnam last month and has also visited China twice in the past year.

However, last year he skipped a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies in South Africa.

He instead joined the meeting in Johannesburg by video link after the South African government lobbied against him showing up for the BRICS summit, a group that also includes China and other emerging economies.

South Africa lobbied Moscow for months for Putin not to attend to avoid the diplomatic fallout since the country is an ICC member and ultimately announced the countries had reached a “mutual agreement” that Putin does not attend in person a meeting he’s normally a fixture at.

The Kremlin and the ICC’s jurisdiction

Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute, and as such, the Kremlin dismissed the ICC warrant on Putin as “null and void.” In recent times, it has bristled at allies attempting to join the Hague-based court.

Armenia’s decision to join the ICC added to the growing tensions between Moscow and Yerevan last year. Armenian officials, however, quickly sought to assure Russia that Putin wouldn’t be arrested if he entered the country.

ICC spokesperson Fadi El Abdallah underscored in a statement on Friday that Mongolia “is a state party to the ICC Rome Statute” and thus has the obligation to cooperate with the court.

“The ICC relies on its States Parties and other partners to execute its decisions, including in relation to arrest warrants,” the official said, adding: “In case of non-cooperation, ICC judges may make a finding to that effect and inform the Assembly of States Parties of it.

It is then for the Assembly to take any measure it deems appropriate.” It wasn’t clear from the statement what kind of measures that would be.

Mongolia, a sparsely populated country between Russia and China, is heavily dependent on the former for fuel and electricity and on the latter for investment in its mining industry.

It was among the 94 countries that signed in June a joint statement declaring their “unwavering support” for the ICC after Prosecutor Karim Khan faced a backlash for seeking arrest warrants against two Israeli officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and three Hamas leaders.

One of the sitting ICC judges, Erdenebalsuren Damdin, is from Mongolia.

Euronews