MOSCOW, March 21. /TASS/. The decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin is essentially a "political hit job" contracted by Western adversaries, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and Ambassador to the Netherlands Alexander Shulgin said on Tuesday.

"It is simply the execution of a political hit job contracted by a certain group of Western countries. It is a fundamentally political action. Obviously, in this way our foes and adversaries are seeking to undermine the Russian president’s reputation, and to hamper his foreign travels," he said.

He stressed that these countries are also pursuing the more important goal of dragging those Asian, African and Latin American countries that they think have not condemned Russia strongly enough or have not taken part in anti-Russian actions into the "anti-Russian orbit." "The International Criminal Court is nothing less than a travesty of justice, a pawn in the hands of some Western countries. And this is precisely how this court should be treated," he added.

On March 17, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova.

The ICC statement said they could be liable "for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation."

Commenting on the decision, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that Moscow did not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC. In turn, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that the decisions of the ICC had no authority for Russia whatsoever, while any potential arrest warrants would be legally void.