The International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday issued an arrest warrant for Putin, accusing him of being responsible for war crimes committed in Ukraine.
The Hague-based court said Putin was allegedly responsible for unlawful deportation of children and unlawful transfer of people from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia.
"Vladimir Putin is a criminal, and the world should treat him that way," Stanisław Żaryn, a senior official at the Polish Prime Minister's Office, said in a tweet at the weekend.
Żaryn added that "the entire period of (Putin's) rule is a series of murders," and "the cruel war against Ukraine is the culmination of this."
Żaryn, who is the Polish government's pointman for cyberspace security, warned that "even a potential (now rather impossible) change in the Kremlin and a palace coup will not change anything."
Russia 'ruled by regime based on criminal services'
He argued that Russia "is ruled by a regime based on the criminal services of the Soviet era."
"Personal games and moving pawns won't change anything," Żaryn said in his tweet.
"The West must remember this, especially when someone decides that this or that dictator needs to be sacrificed," he cautioned.
Poland's foreign ministry has welcomed the International Criminal Court's decision to issue an arrest warrant for Putin, saying it was "the ICC’s first firm formal step towards bringing Russia’s highest authorities to trial" amid wider efforts by the international community to "hold Russia accountable for its war crimes in Ukraine.”
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and Western leaders, including US President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, have hailed the court’s move as a landmark step in efforts to ensure accountability for war crimes in Ukraine, according to news outlets.
The court’s move obligates its 123 member countries to arrest the Russian leader and transfer him to the Hague in the Netherlands for trial, if he sets foot on their territory, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper has reported.
Monday is day 390 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(gs)
Source: PAP