The Kremlin described the arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against former Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimovthe current military chief of staff, as ‘quite absurd’.
“We do not recognize the jurisdiction of the court and are not members of the relevant statute. Accordingly, we also do not recognize the arrest warrants,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday, according to Russian news agency Interfax.
The warrants are as foolish as previous arrest warrants against President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, he added.
The court had issued arrest warrants on Tuesday for Shoigu and Gerasimov on charges of war crimes in Ukraine.
According to the ICC, there is credible evidence that Shoigu and Gerasimov were responsible for rocket attacks on the Ukrainian power grid from October 10, 2022 through at least March 9, 2023.
Many Ukrainians at the time experienced a bitterly cold winter with many power outages.
