Irish Examiner View: Legal net waits for Putin

As difficult as it may seem at the moment to bring Putin to justice, the former chief prosecutor of UN War Crimes Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia has pointed out that the investigation into Slobodan Milosevic began while he was still president of Serbia.

Russian president Vladimir Putin at a meeting in Moscow, last Tuesday. Picture: Mikhail Klimentyev, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

Calls for an international arrest warrant to be issued for Russian president Vladimir Putin may look fanciful at this moment, but with the latest atrocity in Bucha, near Kyiv, where nearly 300 civilians were murdered, it comes one step closer.

“Putin is a war criminal,” the former chief prosecutor of United Nations War Crimes Tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia has told Swiss newspaper Le Temps.

Carla del Ponte spoke after seeing mass graves in Ukraine, which recalled for her the worst excesses of the atrocities committed under then Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic.

“I hoped never to see mass graves again," she said. 

These dead people have loved ones who don’t even know what’s become of them. That is unacceptable.”

Ms Del Ponte said that if the International Criminal Court found proof of war crimes, “you must go up the chain of command until you reach those who took the decisions”.

“When the investigation into Slobodan Milosevic began, he was still president of Serbia," she said. 

Who would have thought then that he would one day be judged? Nobody.”

Amidst the immediate terror of war, it may seem far-fetched to hope Putin may stand in the dock. But in the reports that now emerge — including of deadly booby traps on corpses by retreating Russian forces and/or their mercenaries — Putin’s war machine increasingly resembles the fascist forces Nazi Germany unleashed 83 years ago.

Russia has many good, resourceful, and intelligent people who may not be able to freely express their opinions right now. 

A new law encourages neighbours to inform on each other for any “unpatriotic” statements. That is something else straight out of the playbook of Heinrich Himmler.

Many will be horrified that they are being led by a war criminal. Pursuing the legal route will help to galvanise opinion.