Ukraine ambassador says war criminals ‘go straight to hell’ after ICC issues arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin

Ukraine’s ambassador at the United Nations declared that “there is no purgatory for war criminals, they go straight to hell” in an address delivered after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“Those of them who remain alive after the military defeat of Russia will have to make a stop in The Hague on their way to hell,” Sergiy Kyslytsya said Friday, per EuroNews.

Kyslytsya’s fiery comments came shortly after the ICC issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest, accusing him of abducting Ukrainian children and teenagers. It marked the first time the global court has issued a warrant against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council.

The ICC said in a statement that Putin, who ordered his military to invade Ukraine more than a year ago, “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 international court — headquartered in the Netherlands and representing 123 nations — also issued an arrest warrant for Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, over similar allegations.

The move was immediately brushed off by Moscow, which does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction. That means it’s highly unlikely that Putin and Lvova-Belova will turn themselves in.

The Russian president’s spokesperson blasted the warrant as “outrageous and unacceptable,” adding that it is also “legally void.”

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials praised the move. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it a “historic decision, from which historic responsibility will begin.”

With News Wire Services