MOSCOW, August 22. /TASS/. The ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) by Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada looks politically like a betrayal by the Ukrainian authorities of their servicemen, while legally it has paved a "direct road to The Hague" for them, Russian Federation Council Deputy Speaker Konstantin Kosachev said.

"Politically, Kiev's ratification of the ICC Statute looks, in fact, like a betrayal by the Ukrainian authorities of their own servicemen. Legally, the ratification has paved a direct road to The Hague for the military-political leadership and servicemen of the Kiev regime," the senator wrote on his Telegram channel.

Kosachev pointed out that Ukraine joined the ICC Statute with a reservation, according to which within seven years after the entry into force of the law, Kiev will not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC over its citizens for the commission of crimes under Article 8 of the Statute.

"Ukraine has made this unilateral reservation, by which it has arrogated to itself the right to commit war crimes with impunity for another seven years. All the crimes that the Kiev regime has been committing for eight years in Donbass, and now - in the Kursk area and our other regions. The ICC in The Hague will just watch quietly from the sidelines and wait," he emphasized.

According to the senator, "it is quite possible that we will not have to wait for anything." "Because in addition to Article 8 on war crimes, the ICC Statute provides for liability for genocide (Article 6) and crimes against humanity (Article 7)," he wrote. "Ukraine's reservation does not cover these categories of crime, which means that the ICC may well start working on them," the politician said.

Kosachev also pointed out that after joining the Rome Statute, Ukraine will be subject to the ICC jurisdiction. "By the way, this is a distinctive feature of states deprived of sovereignty. Truly sovereign countries (Russia, the United States, China, India, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia and others) are not subject to any authority other than the authority of their own courts, based on the rule of law," he concluded.

Ratification of ICC Rome Statute

On August 21, Verkhovna Rada lawmaker Irina Gerashchenko said on her Telegram channel that the Ukrainian parliament voted to ratify the ICC Rome Statute, but with a provision exempting the country’s citizens from being prosecuted for war crimes. Gerashchenko admitted that ratification of the statute is one of Kiev's requirements on the way to EU membership, but the authorities delayed it "because of fears that the ICC might prosecute Ukrainian citizens in conditions of war."

The ICC was established by the 1998 Rome Statute. In total, 123 countries are currently parties to the document. The court, based in The Hague, has branches in the countries where investigations are underway.

Ukraine signed the Rome Statute back on January 20, 2000, but never ratified it even though it was obliged to do so under the 2014 EU association agreement.

The countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute include Russia (signed but did not ratify it), the US (signed it but later revoked its signature) and China (never signed it). In 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an executive order saying that the country would not become a party to the ICC. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, "the ICC has failed to live up to expectations and has not become a truly independent body of international justice."