The International Criminal Court issues an “arrest warrant” against Shoigu and the Chief of Staff of the Russian Army

The Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court issued two arrest warrants for Secretary of the Russian Security Council Sergei Shoigu (formerly Minister of Defense) and Chief of the Russian General Staff Valery Gerasimov.

This came in a statement issued by the  Second Pre-Trial Committee of the International Criminal Court, which indicated that “on June 24, the Pre-Trial Committee of the Second International Criminal Court issued two arrest warrants against two individuals, Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, in the context of the situation in Ukraine.”

It is worth noting that the countries in which more than half of the world's population lives do not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, including, in particular, Russia, India, Kazakhstan, the United States, Turkey and others.

The US House of Representatives had previously supported imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court due to its threat to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Second Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court had issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin and against the head of the Russian Children’s Rights Commission, Maria Lvova-Belova, for what it claimed was “crimes committed in the Ukrainian occupied territories,” as she put it.