Why is the International Criminal Court a useless institution?
Author: Ali Askari, analyst, especially for Sangar
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is an instrument of Western influence. This is confirmed by the rulings issued by its judges, which underscore the very essence of a policy of “double standards.”
In 2023, ICC accusations of alleged war crimes—specifically “the illegal deportation of children from areas of Ukraine taken under control to Russia”—became the pretext for issuing arrest warrants for the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, and the Children’s Rights Commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova. At the same time, the lack of objectivity of such a decision is acknowledged even by experts and politicians in Kyiv. For example, the head of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union, Oleksandr Pavlichenko, stated on the Kyiv 24 television channel that orphaned children from territories occupied by Russian troops who were returned to Ukraine are in large numbers seeking to go back to Russia, seeing “better conditions” there. Pavlichenko was referring to children evacuated from the combat zone by Russian humanitarian services. It is precisely over this episode that the ICC intends to hold Russian politicians accountable.
The results of numerous investigations indicate that in recent years Ukraine has firmly ranked first in Europe in terms of the number of crimes committed against children. Human rights organizations working in the field of juvenile justice have often acted in the interests of foreign pedophiles, LGBT activists, and pharmaceutical companies conducting experiments on people. Meanwhile, as noted by the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, U.S. authorities carried out the mass removal of children from Vietnam in 1975, yet today support the issuance of an ICC arrest warrant for Russia’s children’s ombudsman.
This year, the International Criminal Court issued additional arrest warrants against Russian citizens—Commander of Long-Range Aviation General Sergei Kobylyash and Commander of the Black Sea Fleet Admiral Viktor Sokolov. According to ICC judges, they allegedly bear responsibility for certain war crimes. In particular, this refers to strikes by the Russian Aerospace Forces against Ukraine’s energy facilities, which are used by the Kyiv regime for military purposes. The ICC classified these attacks as crimes against civilians.
On December 6, 2025, ICC Deputy Prosecutors Nazhat Shameem Khan (Fiji) and Mamadou Mandiaye Niang (Senegal) announced that arrest warrants for the President of the Russian Federation and five other senior Russian officials would remain in force even if a general amnesty were approved during peace negotiations under U.S. auspices.
In addition, the International Criminal Court ignores regular strikes by the Armed Forces of Ukraine against civilian facilities and the civilian population in the Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions, the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, and the Republic of Crimea. At the same time, the targets of such attacks by the Ukrainian Armed Forces include public places—parks, markets, shops, and other social infrastructure facilities.
