UNITED NATIONS, March 18. /TASS/. The International Criminal Court (ICC), which is ready to exercise pseudo-justice on the orders of the West, has proved its inferiority, Russian Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vassily Nebenzya said speaking at a meeting of the UN Security Council.

"This biased, politicized and incompetent international court has once again proved its inferiority. The ICC is a puppet in the hands of the collective West, which is always ready to exercise pseudo-justice on order," he stressed.

"It is especially cynical that legally insignificant decisions (a warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin - TASS) were made public on the eve of the 20th anniversary of the US illegal invasion of Iraq, where the ICC had jurisdiction, but did nothing to bring the perpetrators to responsibility," Nebenzya said.

"Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute. The ICC does not have jurisdiction over Russia and its citizens. We consider any documents emanating from this body as illegal and void," the permanent representative of the Russian Federation noted.

"By all indications, the ICC has indeed embarked on the path of self-liquidation, primarily in terms of authority and international recognition. We are not alone in this judgment. Let me give you an unexpected quote by US National Security Assistant John Bolton (in 2018-2019 - TASS) from 2018: " We will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us."

On Friday, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova. The court’s statement said they could be responsible "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."

The ICC was created by the 1998 Rome Statute. It is not part of the UN and is accountable to countries that have ratified the statute. Countries not party to the statute include Russia (signed but not ratified), the United States (signed but later withdrew), and China (did not sign the statute). In 2016, Putin signed a decree under which Russia would not become a member of the ICC. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, this court "did not justify the hopes rested on it and did not become a truly independent body of international justice.".