Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, touched down in Kyrgyzstan on Thursday, marking his first foreign visit since the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him in March.
President Putin is being sought by the court for his involvement in the deportation of Ukrainian children, and the ICC’s ruling mandates that its member nations, except for Kyrgyzstan, apprehend him upon his arrival.
Early Thursday, news agencies in Russia, including TASS, Interfax, and RIA Novosti, reported Putin’s arrival in Kyrgyzstan.
His agenda includes a meeting with Kyrgyz counterpart Sadyr Japarov and participation in a Commonwealth of Independent States summit with Belarusian ally Alexander Lukashenko and other regional leaders.
The leader, who has been in power for an extended period, has rarely undertaken trips outside of Russia since commencing the Ukraine offensive in February 2022.
Read also: Putin Commences Russian Gas Deliveries To Uzbekistan
Throughout this year, his travels have been limited to Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, and his previous foreign visits to Belarus and Kyrgyzstan were in December last year, representing a significant departure from his previously packed international itinerary.
As a clear sign of Russia’s isolation, he is arranging visits to North Korea and China.
Moscow has drawn an analogy between the possibility of Putin’s arrest abroad and an act of war, branding the warrant as “illegal.”
In practical terms, Russia has been taking precautions. For instance, in August, they chose to send Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to a BRICS summit in ICC member South Africa, rather than President Putin.
The Western world has shunned Putin due to the large-scale Ukraine offensive, and the ICC ruling has virtually sealed off access to a substantial portion of the globe for him.
A total of 123 nations have given their official endorsement to the Rome Statute, a treaty that requires member countries to honor ICC decisions.
The ICC’s verdict presented a legal challenge for ICC member South Africa, which was hosting the BRICS summit Putin had been invited to. In an 11th-hour decision, Moscow chose to have its foreign minister attend in place of Putin.
‘Why should I create some problems for our friends during an event?’ Putin said this month, commenting on his absence from Johannesburg.
‘If I come, a political show will start,’ he added.
Both Putin and his Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova are subjects of a manhunt for their alleged war crimes, specifically the purported unlawful deportation of thousands of Ukrainian children to Russia.