Last fall, we heard about how Putin allies were beginning to truly fear that he’ll lose his war in Ukraine. This led them to worry about would happen to their butts — if they, too, could be accused of war crimes — in the aftermath. Well, no one has lost this war yet, but Putin has already been made the subject of an International Criminal Court warrant over his “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children to Russia. Team Putin, of course, publicly scoffed and made a toilet-paper joke after news broke about the warrant, but privately? Things reportedly aren’t so chill.
As relayed by The Daily Beast (originally via independent news outlet Verstka), private Kremlin chat transcripts revealed outrage and “unprintable” reactions of anger following the ICC warrant. However, the tune reportedly changed to concern, “with some wondering if they’d become the next Heinrich Himmler and Joseph Goebbels.” Oh boy. The spiral continued over fears of their own war crime charges:
“There was an instant thought that there are not only sanctions against [us], but also more serious things, that it would be impossible to leave the country,” one source in a government ministry was quoted saying. He said he himself did not expect to face any criminal prosecution, but that other members of the government could “maybe” go down.
One of Putin’s allies (Dmitry Medvedev), however, came forward (via Reuters) to claim that anyone who did try to arrest Putin would effectively be declaring war on Russia.
Meanwhile and according to The Daily Beast, Putin-aligned members of parliament began to fret as well because “it’s as if we really are in complete global isolation.” A direct response from Putin himself has yet to surface, although he’s been busy making propaganda clips and worrying about cabbage, so who knows if reality has hit him yet.
(Via The Daily Beast & Reuters)