Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said that Russian leader Vladimir Putin will not be arrested in Brazil if he attends the Group of 20 meeting in Rio de Janeiro next year.
Lula, speaking to the Firstpost news show at the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Delhi on Saturday, said Putin would be invited to next year’s event.
He added that he himself planned to attend a BRICS bloc of developing nations meeting due in Russia before the Rio meeting.
“I believe that Putin can go easily to Brazil,” Lula said. “What I can say to you is that if I’m president of Brazil, and he comes to Brazil, there’s no way he will be arrested.”
The statement comes after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against Putin in March, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.
I don’t think any sane country would arrest Putin. Deny him entry sure. But not arrest him. Declaring war on Russia, even if they are a paper tiger today, is not going to be in anybody’s best interest
Exceptions for Ukraine and Poland. They would absolutely arrest Putin on sight.
Why should any NATO country (beside maybe Turkey) not immediately arrest him?
World war 3 is going to be a total downer for everyone, most countries will want to avoid it, or at least try not to be the one to start it.
Not to mention the president of a country travels as a diplomat. Arresting diplomats is something that’s frowned upon internationally.
Arresting the president of a country, or kidnapping the president of a country, is a pretty clear declaration of war.
Let’s say by some miracle war doesn’t immediately break out, well the country you’ve just pissed off has a bunch of hostages immediately available, all of your diplomats and citizens in their borders. As much as we want to talk about rule of law, at the international level between countries it’s all about capabilities.
It is a false narrative that doing anything against russian aggression automatically means WW3.
And this false narrative is deliberately spread by pro russian channels so that Russia gets challenged as little as possible.
Putin is a war criminal and should be arrested, if Russia then chooses to go to war (which I doubt) they will see how it serves them.
You mean a false narrative that has been US policy since 1940? This isn’t “just doing something”, this is a direct act of war. Removing a head of state is quite literally referred to as a decapitation strike.
If the president of Russia is flying to Brazil for an economic summit, and has engine trouble and has to land in Spain for instance. Spain arrests him. That is a de facto state of war between NATO and Russia.
That’s not a false narrative, that’s not apologistic.
Repeating this doesn’t make it any more true.
Which Russian politician would throw away his new reign for an attack on NATO which might mean WW3, but which definitely will mean the total and utter destruction of Russia as a nation.
Fair enough. We don’t know what will happen until it happens. I’m just trying to provide some rationale for why countries won’t be exercising that particular option.
Fun fact, in Russia the president can declare war unilaterally. I wonder what incentives a imprisoned Russian president have to prevent them from ordering a military rescue, military intervention, full-fledged war.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_war
Another fun thought experiment: The United Nations is headquartered in New York City. If the Russian president wants to address the United Nations personally. The UN requires free passage for diplomats to visit the UN. The United States is a signatory of the UN charter. So the United States is obligated to allow freedom of movement to and from the UN by Russian diplomats including the president to address the UN.
If the US breaks the UN charter, things get really interesting very fast.
This will definitely never happen, for many reasons, but not inconsequentially because the US is not a signatory to the ICC
Not because “they broke the UN charter”. International laws and diplomatic agreements are game of power and alliances. The US hosts and is the largest funder of the UN, closely allied to most of the other major supporters, and has some form of power over most of the other nations. There are no higher authorities enforcing international laws.
Having thought about it let’s do a thought experiment. The United States president has engine trouble and has to land in Iran. The Iranians arrest the US president for illegal sanctions against the Iranian State.
What happens next?
Does the US allow the Iranian legal system time to follow its due process and come to a conclusion? Or does something else happen?
I take your point but I think the power dynamic there makes it pretty different. The US has a much greater ability to damage Iran than Iran has the US. While that may also be true to some extent between NATO and Russia, nuclear weapons make everyone extra wary of such a conflict. Let’s say Putin or his lieutenant declare war in response. Do the foot-soldiers follow through knowing it may lead to nuclear annihilation? That’s unclear.
But even actions that have a chance of leading to that outcome will be avoided, which is why Putin will not be arrested. It’s also not clear he would be replaced by anyone who would improve the situation, so there’s really no incentive to do this at all.
NATO is not at war with Russia.
And what does that have to do with arresting a war criminal?
Arresting the leader of a sovereign nation amounts at least to a diplomatic crisis, and at worst to a declaration of war.
And before George Bush is brought to trial I don’t think the West has much credibility in dealing with war criminals.
We’d arrest him but he’d have to set foot in Germany, or at least Europe, first. The US are hardly going to extradite him, aren’t they.
No country would ever arrest Bush. The US has far too much invested in insuring qualified immunity for former heads of state. Imagine if every president knew that any country could either arrest or coerce extradition based solely on decisions made in office, nobody would run for office. There is an implicit guarantee that current presidents will retailate against states that imprison US citizens who act in an official capacity.
Additionally there is no arrest warrant for Bush in Germany, or any country in Europe.
Germany claims universal jurisdiction for crimes against humanity as well as wars of aggression. The US can try as much as it wants to tell Germany “Bush is going to come please don’t arrest him”, the answer will be “Have a look at our laws it’s all laid out in very clear terms”. And, no, he’s not going to be recognised as a US diplomat, and therefore won’t be granted immunity.
And of course there’s no arrest warrant he’s not in the country and if we’d send out an Interpol notice the US would go ballistic. Hence the simple understanding that he’s not going to come over for a visit.
States generally decide who to extradite on their own terms. That is nothing new or unusual and Germany certainly isn’t in a position to complain the US won’t extradite a citizen given that we don’t extradite citizens as a matter of principle (unless it’s within the EU and certain conditions are met), but instead trial them over here.
Pretty sure there is a good deal of evidence that Germany caves into US pressure. In fact you admit it yourself, ”US would go ballistic” you claim.
If the US going ballistic over a public Interpol red card is sufficient to prevent Germany from issuing one, where would the sudden courage come from to actually arrest Bush?
“The answer will be ‘Have a look at our laws…’”
No the answer will be "Whatever you say President Biden”. Germany is an incredibly weak country, UK and France are much more geopolitically powerful than Germany and they are effectively US satellites.
It’s simply hilarious how you are trying to puff up Germany as somehow this great power that can afford to alienate the US.
No European country would arrest Putin, let alone a NATO country, and especially not Germany lol. They wouldn’t even allow him into the country in the first place.
I think they were talking about Bush. While I think Cheney deserves it more, was there ever an arrest warrant for either of them?
I don’t think so, which is also one of the reasons anyone outside the western hemisphere can safely dismiss anything the ICC says. But also the US made it pretty clear it would not accept any international court ruling, and AFIK there even was a slight threat of violence when it was being discussed a decade ago.
Oh, no
He’s only a war criminal if convicted in a court of law.
No, I’m not defending Putin in the slightest bit, I’m simply stating that just because people across the globe have labelled him as a war criminal, doesn’t automatically make that official.
And that’s why the ICC issued a warrant and any sane country should execute the warrant. We just want to talk to him…
Eh… the international legal system is not very functional so I’m not sure I agree with this. By that definition Hitler was not a war criminal either because he died before going to trial.
Plenty of war criminals already living freely in NATO countries.
From the excellent Harley Quinn cartoon
Excellent cartoon. There’s also “Dr. Henry Killinger” from Venture Bros which was hilariously devious.
How do you figure?
I think it’s not necessarily whether countries would or wouldn’t arrest him. It’s more, if he’s invited to a summit or otherwise making travel arraignments, he gets confirmation they don’t intend to arrest him. If a country doesn’t commit to not arresting him, he just wouldn’t go. If a country says they won’t arrest him, then arrest him, it calls into question that country’s diplomacy.
I am fully pro ukraine.
Because if they arrest him, there could easily be bloodshed outside of Ukraine. As much as nato countries are happy to support Ukraine currently, they aren’t interested in inviting conflict to their own borders
Acting on behalf of the ICC, not the nation, I could see it happening and not causing too much issue. Putin won’t be going anywhere that may possibly do so though, so it’s not worth considering.
Russia barely has the logistics capability to defeat a country right next door.
Ignoring the fact the Brazil has a defensive treaty with the US, how exactly is Russia going to do an amphibious invasion?
This is all ignoring that the first thing Russia would do is turn on itself once Putin was out of the picture.
Huh? Russia could just attempt assassinations, terrorist style attacks, etc
Again I’m not saying it’s the wrong thing to arrest him, just that it has consequences
Probably far from enough to make a difference but Russia has troops and bases in neighboring Venezuela.
It would still be a logistical nightmare considering the distances involved between Venezuela’s border and the important Brazilian cities and the whole Amazon rainforest in between them.
As a Brazillian, I think it would probably be good if we were at NATO, but we’re not.
At this point Ukraine might even himars him on sight
Maybe it’s like Hitler and they don’t want Putin being replaced by someone competent at war.
“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”.
Yeah. Putin would absolutely have diplomatic immunity as a head of state visiting another country. Arresting him would put the whole concept of diplomatic immunity at risk.
That’s for domestic crimes. International crimes like genocide, torture and other war crimes have no functional immunity for a head of state. Pinochet for example.
That’s why Putin didn’t go to South Africa.