Russia? “A strong man hides behind the girls he kidnapped”

The German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbach slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin during her speech to the United Nations (UN) Security Council on Tuesday, accusing him of “hiding behind kidnapped teenage girls”.

At issue is the fact that the Russian president is the target of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged war crimes in Ukraine, including the deportation of children from Moscow-occupied Ukrainian territories following the invasion that began in Moscow. February 2022.

“943 days of suffering. 943 days of rape of women in Bucha, 943 days of torture of people in eastern Ukraine. 943 days of deportation of children,” Baerbach said. “Over 20 thousand children are estimated to have been deported”.

“I had the opportunity to speak with one of the very few teenage girls who returned to Ukraine,” the minister added, asking her not to give up “through tears.” “Please make me a promise, you won’t stop, you won’t rest until the other girls, the other boys, the little kids, come back.”asked the young woman.

Baerbach insisted that Germany was “responsible for the worst crimes on the European continent” but was now “fortunate to live in peace again”. “Today, we have people asking us whether it would be useful to end the war if we don’t support Ukraine’s self-defense. If we simply ignore what’s happening, we can’t do that, because my country’s commitment is always to defend the principles of my country. The United Nations.”Shoot.

And he sent a message to the Russian Ambassador to the UN, Vasiliy Nebenzia: “You can fool yourself. The strongest man in your country can hide behind kidnapped teenage girls. But you can’t fool the world. We don’t need 943 days of atrocities to see that.”.

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It should be noted that the Kremlin has always steadfastly rejected the ICC’s charges against the Russian president and the Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lavova-Belova, for deporting children from Moscow-occupied Ukrainian territories.

However, for almost a year and a half, Putin was careful to avoid foreign travel, for example, he missed the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) summit in South Africa in August 2023, and then went to the G20 summit. In India, in September of the same year.

On the other hand, he visited China in May, North Korea in June and Azerbaijan in mid-August, but none of these countries are members of the ICC.

His first visit to an ICC member state was in late August when he visited Mongolia. However, the country refused to accept the arrest warrant.

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