THE HAGUE (AP) — The International Criminal Court said Friday it has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes because of his alleged involvement in abductions of children from Ukraine.
The court said in a statement that Putin "is allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation."
It also issued a warrant Friday for the arrest of Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Commissioner for Children's Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, on similar allegations.
The court's president, Piotr Hofmanski, said in a video statement that while the ICC's judges have issued the warrants, it will be up to the international community to enforce them. The court has no police force of its own to enforce warrants.
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"The ICC is doing its part of work as a court of law. The judges issued arrest warrants. The execution depends on international cooperation."
A possible trial of any Russians at the ICC remains a long way off, as Moscow does recognize the court's jurisdiction — a position reaffirmed earlier this week by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov — and does not extradite its nationals .
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on the social and economic development of Crimea and Sevastopol via a videoconference at the Moscow's Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Friday, March 17, 2023. (Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Ukraine also is not a member of the court, but it has granted the ICC jurisdiction over its territory and ICC prosecutor Karim Khan has visited four times since opening an investigation a year ago.
The ICC said that its pre-trial chamber found there were "reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect bears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population and that of unlawful transfer of population from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, in prejudice of Ukrainian children."
The court statement said that "there are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility" for the child abductions "for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others (and) for his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts."
On Thursday, a U.N.-backed inquiry cited Russian attacks against civilians in Ukraine, including systematic torture and killing in occupied regions, among potential issues that amount to war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.
The sweeping investigation also found crimes committed against Ukrainians on Russian territory, including deported Ukrainian children who were prevented from reuniting with their families, a "filtration" system aimed at singling out Ukrainians for detention, and torture and inhumane detention conditions.
But on Friday, the ICC put the face of Putin on the child abduction allegations.
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Photos: In Ukraine, searing images capture a year of war
Natali Sevriukova is overcome with emotion as she stands outside her destroyed apartment building following a rocket attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Ukrainians crowd under a destroyed bridge as they try to flee by crossing the Irpin River on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, March 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Stanislav says goodbye to his 2-year-old son, David, and wife, Anna, after they boarded a train that will take them to Lviv, from the station in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 3. 2022. Stanislav stayed to fight as his family sought refuge in a neighboring country. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A child in a stroller is lifted across an improvised path as people flee Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Ukrainian emergency personnel and police officers evacuate injured pregnant woman Iryna Kalinina, 32, from a maternity hospital that was damaged by a Russian airstrike in Mariupol, Ukraine, March 9, 2022. "Kill me now!" she screamed, as they struggled to save her life at another hospital even closer to the frontline. The baby was born dead, and a half-hour later, Iryna died too. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A man runs after recovering items from a burning shop following a Russian attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 25, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
An elderly woman is assisted while crossing the Irpin River on an improvised path under a bridge that was destroyed by Ukrainian troops designed to slow any Russian military advance, while fleeing the town of Irpin, Ukraine, March 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Bodies are placed into a mass grave on the outskirts of Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
A woman reacts as she waits for a train trying to leave Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Cadets practice with gas masks during a lesson in a bomb shelter on the first day of school at a cadet lyceum in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Sept. 1, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Armored vehicles destroyed during the fighting between Ukrainian and Russian armed forces lie on a bank of the frozen Siverskiy Donets River in the recently-liberated village of Bogorodychne, Ukraine, Friday, Jan. 13, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
An explosion erupts from an apartment building at 110 Mytropolytska St., after a Russian army tank fired on it in Mariupol, Ukraine, Friday, March 11, 2022. On the seventh floor of the building, two elderly women Lydya and Nataliya were stuck in their apartment because they couldn't make it down to the shelter, and were killed in the explosion. The two heavily burned bodies were buried by neighbors in front of the building. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Destroyed Russian tanks sit on a main road after battles near Brovary, north of Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 10, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Ira Gavriluk holds her cat as she stands near the bodies of her husband and brother who were killed in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, April 4, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Ludmila, left, says goodbye to her granddaughter, Kristina, who, with her son, Yaric, departs by train from Odesa, southern Ukraine, on Tuesday, March 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
The body of a man with his hands tied behind his back lies on the ground in Bucha, Ukraine, Sunday, April 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
A man and child ride a bicycle as bodies of civilians lie in the street in the formerly Russian-occupied Kyiv suburb of Bucha, Ukraine, Saturday, April 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Children look out of the window of an unheated Lviv-bound train, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, March 3, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
A civilian wears a Vladimir Putin mask as a spoof, while a Ukrainian soldier stands atop a destroyed Russian tank in Bucha, Ukraine, outside of Kyiv, on April 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Nina Shevchenko mourns over the body of her 15-year-old son, Artem Shevchenko, who was killed in a Russian attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, April 15, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
The body of an elderly woman lies inside a house in Bucha, outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, April 5, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Elderly men lie in beds at a hospice in Chasiv Yar city, Donetsk district, Ukraine, Monday, April 18, 2022. At least 35 men and women, some in wheelchairs and most of them with mobility issues, were helped by volunteers to flee from the region that has been under attack in the last few weeks. They are being transported to Khmelnytskyi, in western Ukraine. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
Ukrainian soldiers carry the coffin of Volodymyr Losev, 38, during his funeral in Zorya Truda in the Odesa region of Ukraine, Monday, May 16, 2022. The 38-year-old Ukrainian volunteer soldier was killed on May 7 when the military vehicle he was driving ran over a mine in eastern Ukraine. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Nila Zelinska holds her granddaughter's doll found in her destroyed house in Potashnya on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, May 31, 2022. Zelinska had just returned to her hometown after escaping war to find out she is homeless. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Volodymyr, 66, injured from a strike, sits on a chair in his damaged apartment in Kramatorsk, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
Relatives and friends pay their last respects to Liza, a 4-year-old girl killed in a Russian attack, during a mourning ceremony in an Orthodox church in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, Sunday, July 17, 2022. Wearing a blue denim jacket with flowers, Liza was among 23 people killed, including two boys aged 7 and 8, in a missile strike three days earlier in Vinnytsia. Her mother, Iryna Dmytrieva, was among the scores injured. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Anastasia Ohrimenko, 26, is comforted by relatives as she cries next to the coffin of her husband, Yury Styglyuk, a Ukrainian serviceman who died in combat on Aug. 24, in Maryinka, Donetsk, during his funeral in Bucha, Ukraine, Wednesday, Aug. 31, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Ukrainian soldiers fire artillery towards Russian positions near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022. (AP Photo/LIBKOS)
A woman warms her dog in her coat in Kivsharivka, Ukraine, Sunday, Oct. 16, 2022. Residents in Kivsharivka have been living without gas, electricity or running water for around three weeks. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Ukrainian family members reunite for the first time since Russian troops withdrew from the Kherson region in the village of Tsentralne, southern Ukraine, on Nov. 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
A resident wounded after a Russian attack lies inside an ambulance before being taken to a hospital in Kherson, southern Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
A woman transporting the coffin holding the body of her son, a soldier who was killed in fighting with Russians, sits in a boat crossing the Siverskyi Donets River near Staryi Saltiv, Kharkiv region on Wednesday Jan. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Erik Marmor)
A woman walks with a flashlight during a power outage in Kyiv, Ukraine, Wednesday, Dec. 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Ukrainian military doctors treat an injured comrade who was evacuated from the battlefield at the hospital in Donetsk region, Ukraine, Monday, Jan. 9, 2023. The serviceman did not survive. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
The body of a woman lies under rubble after a Russian rocket hit a multistory building leaving many people under debris in the southeastern city of Dnipro, Ukraine, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Emergency workers clear the rubble after a Russian rocket hit a multistory building leaving many people under debris in the southeastern city of Dnipro, Ukraine, Saturday, Jan. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Relatives mourn over the body of Oleksiy Zavadskyi, a Ukrainian serviceman who died in combat on Jan. 15 in Bakhmut, during his funeral in Bucha, Ukraine, on Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023. (AP Photo/Daniel Cole)
Ambulance paramedic Oleksandr Konovalov performs CPR on a girl injured by shelling in a residential area, next to her father, left, after arriving at the city hospital in Mariupol, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. The girl did not survive. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Residents prepare tea in a basement being used as a bomb shelter in Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, March 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
A woman takes shelter in a basement with no electricity in Irpin, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, March 13, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
