MOSCOW, March 14. /TASS/. Russia does not recognize the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
"We don’t recognize this court, and we don’t recognize the court’s jurisdiction. This is how we feel about it," he said when asked how the Kremlin felt about reports of the court potentially hearing two cases against Russia over the situation in Ukraine.
According to the Russian presidential spokesman, Moscow keeps pointing out that "over the years, neither international judicial [institutions], even those that we don’t recognize, nor other members of the international community have bothered to pay attention to the destruction of civilian infrastructure and civilian killings committed by Ukrainian nationalists in Donbass."
Earlier, the New York Times reported, citing officials, that the Hague-based court soon planned to open two cases over Russia’s "war crimes" in Ukraine.
The International Criminal Court, established based on the 1998 Rome Statute, is not part of the United Nations and reports to the countries that ratified the document. The countries that aren’t the Statute’s members include Russia (who signed but did not ratify the document), the United States (signed the Statute but withdrew its signature later) and China (did not sign the Statute). In November 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an order saying that Russia did not plan to become an ICC member. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the court failed to become a truly independent and credible international justice body.