Armenia signs on to International Criminal Court, defying Russia

YEREVAN — Armenia has ratified the statutes of the International Criminal Court, the U.N. tribunal that has issued a warrant for the arrest of Russian President Vladimir Putin over alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan has signed a law to this effect, the presidential office in the capital Yerevan said.

The recognition of the Rome Statute that established the court in the Dutch city of The Hague means that if Putin were to travel to Armenia, which has traditionally been allied with Russia, he would now face the risk of arrest as the ICC’s member states are obliged to adhere to the warrant once the Russian president enters their territory.

Putin, 71, has barely left Russia since launching his all-out war on Ukraine in February 2022.

The ICC accuses Putin of being responsible for the abduction and deportation of children and minors from Russian-occupied territories in Ukraine to Russia. Moscow refers to the incidents as evacuations.

The Kremlin has slammed Armenia for its plans to sign up to the court. Yerevan, on the other hand, justified the move by saying it would enable it to hold Azerbaijan to account for possible war crimes committed in the disputed South Caucasus region of NagornoKarabakh.

Armenia has traditionally relied on Russia as a protective power in its decades-long conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, which was mostly inhabited by ethnic Armenians before Baku seized the territory in a brief military operation in September, displacing tens of thousands of people.

The blitz takeover has left many Armenians feeling they were abandoned by Russia, while Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has also started to steer the country onto a more pro-Western course.