The president of Serbia considered on Sunday that the arrest warrant for Russian head of state Vladimir Putin will have negative consequences and will only prolong the war in Ukraine.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader on Friday, accusing him of war crimes.
The ICC accuses Putin of personal responsibility for child abductions in Ukraine during the escalation of Russia’s invasion of the neighboring country, which began 13 months ago.
“I think that issuing an arrest warrant against Putin, to avoid getting into legal issues, will have bad political consequences, and it shows that there is a great unwillingness to talk about peace (and) about the truth,” said Vucic in Ukraine. journalists in Belgrade.
“My question is, when they accused you of the greatest war crimes, who are you going to talk to now?” he asked.
“Do you really think it is possible to beat Russia in a month, three months or a year?” asked Vucic, adding: “There is no question that the aim of those who did this is to make it difficult for Putin to communicate. so that everyone who speaks to him knows that he is being accused of war crimes”.
Asked if Putin will be arrested if he goes to Serbia, Vucic said this “is not a problem” because it is clear that Putin has “nowhere to go as long as the conflict (in Ukraine) continues”.
Although Serbia also wants to join the European Union, it maintains close ties with Russia and is the only European state that refuses to participate in the sanctions against Moscow.
A staunch opponent of international war crimes tribunals, Vucic was a top official in an ultra-nationalist party whose leader, Vojislav Seselj, and several other members faced the International Court of Justice for crimes committed during the wars of the 1990s.
late nineties, Vucic served as Information Minister in the government of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic during the war in Kosovo, in which Serb troops were accused of several crimes against Kosovo Albanian separatists.
Milosevic was arrested in Serbia in 2001 on war crimes charges. He died before the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2006, before the end of the trial for crimes committed by Serb forces during the Balkan War in the late 1990s. .
Source: DN
