Russia warns Armenia against siding with ICC after Putin arrest warrant: ‘serious consequences’

Russia warns Armenia that there would be “serious consequences” if it went ahead with plans to join the International Criminal Court.

The state-run RIA news agency cited a Russian Foreign Ministry source as saying that the ICC of Armenia’s plans are “unacceptable”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on the social and economic development of Crimea and Sevastopol via video conference at the Moscow Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Friday, March 17, 2023. (Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

It said Russia had warned the government of Armenia that there would be “extremely negative consequences” between their two nations if it became a state party to the statue of Rome – a move that would have to be ratified by the Armenian parliament after approval by the constitutional court.

“Moscow considers Yerevan’s official plans to accede to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as absolutely unacceptable against the background of the ICC’s recent unlawful null and void arrest warrants against the Russian leadership,” said a source of the Russian daily. Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Putin ally says Russia has ‘weapons capable of destroying any opponent, including the United States’

Armenia has been a traditional ally of Russia. The two nations have a mutual defense pact and Russia maintains troops and a military base in Armenia.

FILE: A general view outside the International Criminal Court (ICC) on March 29, 2022 in The Hague, Netherlands. (Alex Gottschalk/DeFodi Images via Getty Images)

But relations have soured in recent months. Yerevan accuses Moscow of failing to abide by a 2020 ceasefire treaty that helped the country between Armenia and Azerbaijan end a war over Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-populated region of Azerbaijan .

The ICC said earlier this month that it had issued an arrest warrant against Putin for war crimes and charged him with personal responsibility for the kidnapping of children from Ukraine. The Kremlin condemned the move as a pointless and excessively partisan decision.

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It was the first time that the global court issued an order against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.