Mongolia criticised for failing to arrest Putin despite ICC warrant

Ida Sawyer, director of the department responsible for international conflicts at Human Rights Watch, says the Mongolian authorities' failure to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin should have consequences. She emphasised that despite the huge missed opportunity, the world of the Russian leader has still significantly shrunk.

Russian President Vladimir Putin travelled to Mongolia last week. It was the first visit to a country recognising the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court since last March when a warrant was issued for his arrest in connection with the unlawful deportation of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia.

Ukraine, the EU, and non-governmental organisations, including Human Rights Watch, criticised Putin's reception by the Mongolian side and called for his arrest. Ida Sawyer, director of the crisis, conflict, and arms division, called the authorities' lack of response in Ulaanbaatar a "huge missed opportunity."

We hope that other states that are signatories to the Rome Statute will ensure that Mongolia is held accountable for not fulfilling its obligations, she said in an interview with PAP.

The activist added that regardless of last week’s events, the world of the Russian leader has "significantly shrunk", as evidenced by last year's BRICS summit in Johannesburg, at which Putin did not appear precisely due to fears of arrest. - In that case, it was made clear what awaits him. That signal still means something - she said.

Ida Sawyer, one of the guests at the Economic Forum in Karpacz last week, has been associated with Human Rights Watch for 18 years. She currently leads a team of over a dozen researchers who document war crimes in Haiti, Israel and Palestine, Sudan, Syria, and Ukraine.

In an interview with PAP, Sawyer emphasised that social media has revolutionised the process of gathering evidence on war crimes in recent years.

- Both witnesses and perpetrators upload materials online. There are tons of them. Of course, this involves significant risks because it's easy to manipulate. Often, we see, for example, a tweet about a massacre in Darfur from last week, only to find that someone posted a photo of something that happened 10 years ago, sometimes even in a different country - she explained.

Pointing out that materials shared by the perpetrators have often helped their identification, Sawyer admitted that this is usually extremely difficult. Just investigating crimes in Ukrainian Mariupol took HRW researchers almost two years. During that time, they conducted interviews with 240 people. They analysed over 850 photos and videos, which ultimately led to the identification of 10 senior commanders who were likely responsible for crimes against civilians.

- In addition to determining which military units were present in Mariupol during the siege, we analysed notes from Russian army commanders' meetings, obituaries of Russian soldiers, and decorations awarded by the Kremlin for service in that city - and, of course, videos published by the soldiers themselves. This is one of the cases where we obtained some concrete information - said Sawyer.

Admitting that the scale of atrocities that occurred in Ukraine is enormous, Sawyer expressed regret over the double standards resulting in different treatments of various conflicts by the international community.

- The widespread mobilisation regarding Ukraine certainly lifted spirits. We saw what is possible when there is political will. However, in the past 10 months, my team has proven that similar human rights violations and the destruction of local communities have occurred in the Gaza Strip. In this case, the United States and many other countries allied with the International Criminal Court not only do not cooperate but try to undermine its work - she pointed out, calling for the law to be applied even when it is "politically inconvenient".