International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan said he believes Russia is treating children like “spoils of war," according to CNN.
Last week, the ICC court said last week that it was seeking Russian President Vladimir Putin’s arrest because he “is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of (children) and that of unlawful transfer of (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
The court also issued an arrest warrant for Russian children's rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for her role in allegedly illegally deporting Ukrainian children to Russia.
The Ukrainian government has said 16,221 children have been taken to Russia since the war began. A report by the U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine last week said there was evidence of the illegal transfer of hundreds of Ukrainian children to Russia.
Khan added that the Rome Statute of the Geneva Conventions clarifies that "you can’t deport civilians to a foreign country.”
“You must look after them," Khan said of Ukrainian children. "If they are not safe, you move them to a safe part of Ukraine. If that’s not possible, a neutral third country. And it seems to be not just deportation to Russian Federation, they’re met by strangers who now have suddenly become adopted parents. And the children are not property, they’re not the spoils of war.”
The prosecutor said Russia does not seem to be denying the allegations against it but rather wearing it “like a badge of honor."
