Russian leader Putin challenges international arrest warrant by visiting Mongolia

Ulan Bator, Mongolia — Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Mongolia on Tuesday without giving any sign that the host nation would give in to calls for his arrest on an international warrant for alleged war crimes committed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Putin’s trip is his first to an International Criminal Court member state since it issued the order about 18 months ago. Before the visit, Ukraine had called on Mongolia to extradite Putin to the Hague court, and the European Union had expressed concerns that Mongolia might not comply with the order. Putin’s spokesman said last week that the Kremlin was not concerned.

The order puts the Mongolian government in a difficult position. After decades of communism and close ties to the Soviet Union, it transitioned to democracy in the 1990s and established ties with the United States, Japan and other new partners. But it remains economically dependent on two much larger and more powerful neighbors, Russia and China. Russia supplies the landlocked country with most of its fuel and a significant amount of its electricity.

The International Criminal Court has accused Putin of being responsible for the kidnapping of children from Ukraine, where fighting has raged for 2½ years. Member states are required by the court’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute, to detain suspects if an arrest warrant is issued, but Mongolia must maintain good relations with Russia and the court lacks a mechanism to enforce warrants.

The Russian leader was greeted in the main square of Ulan Bator, the capital, by an honour guard dressed in bright red and blue uniforms, modelled on the uniforms of the personal guard of the 13th-century ruler Genghis Khan, founder of the Mongol Empire.

He and Mongolian President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa walked up the red steps of the Government Palace and bowed to the statue of Genghis Khan before entering the building to attend meetings.

A small group of protesters who tried to unfurl the Ukrainian flag ahead of the welcoming ceremony were taken away by police.

Both governments signed agreements on a feasibility study and a project to modernize the Ulaanbaatar power plant and ensure the continuity of aviation fuel supplies to Mongolia. Putin also presented plans to develop a railway system between the two countries.

He invited the Mongolian president to a summit of BRICS nations — a group that includes Russia and China — in the Russian city of Kazan in late October. Khurelsukh accepted, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

On Monday, the EU expressed concerns that the ICC order might not be executed and said it had shared its concerns with the Mongolian authorities.

“Mongolia, like all other countries, has the right to develop its international relations in line with its own interests,” European Commission spokeswoman Nabila Massrali said, adding: “Mongolia has been a state party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court since 2002, with the legal obligations that go with it.”

More than 50 Russians living abroad have signed an open letter calling on the Mongolian government to “immediately detain Vladimir Putin upon his arrival.” Among the signatories was Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was freed from a Russian prison in August in the largest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War.

Dmitry Medvedev, deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, denounced Putin’s arrest warrant as “illegal” in a statement posted online Tuesday and called those who would try to carry it out “madmen.”

Putin, making his first visit to Mongolia in five years, will attend a ceremony marking the 85th anniversary of the joint Soviet-Mongolian victory over the Japanese army that controlled Manchuria in northeastern China. Thousands of soldiers on both sides died in months of fighting in 1939 to draw the border between Manchuria and Mongolia.

“I am very pleased with Putin’s visit to Mongolia,” said Yansanjav Demdendorj, a retired economist, citing Russia’s role in the fight against Japan. “If we think about … the battle, it was the Russians who helped liberate Mongolia.”

Putin has made a series of foreign trips in recent months to try to counter the international isolation he has experienced over the invasion of Ukraine. He visited China in May, toured North Korea and Vietnam in June, and to Kazakhstan in July for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

But Kenneth Roth, former longtime director of Human Rights Watch, described Putin’s trip to Mongolia as a “sign of weakness,” writing on X that the Russian leader “could only afford to travel to a country with a tiny population of 3.4 million that lives in Russia’s shadow.”

Putin joined the Johannesburg meeting last year by video link after the South African government lobbied against his attendance at the BRICS summit. South Africa, an ICC member, was condemned by activists and its main opposition party in 2015 when it failed to arrest then-Sudan President Omar al-Bashir during a visit.

Enkhgerel Seded, who studies at a university in Moscow, said that historically, countries with friendly relations do not arrest heads of state during official visits.

“Our country has obligations to the international community,” she said. “But… I think it would not be appropriate to make an arrest in this case either.”