Sarah Fowler
Live reporter

With that recap, we're ending our live news coverage of the unexpected arrest warrant for Russia's President Putin, issued by the International Criminal Court.

This page was edited by me, Nathan Williams and Francesca Gillett. Writers include George Wright, Phelan Chatterjee, James Harness, Jack Burgess, Thomas Mackintosh and Margaret Ford.

You can read more about the story here, and for an explanation on what the process of bringing Putin to justice could look like, read this.

Thanks for joining us.

Here's a round-up of what's been happening today:

• The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine
• The ICC says he is responsible for war crimes during the Ukraine war, which includes the unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia
• Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's commissioner for children's rights, was hit with the same charges
• ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said children "can't be treated as spoils of war" and that it's possible Putin could stand trial
• But Russia is not a signatory to the ICC's Rome Statute, so Putin and Lvova-Belova will not be extradited
• Moscow has rejected the ICC's decision and described the move as null and void and "outrageous and unacceptable"
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called the arrest warrant a "historic decision, from which historical responsibility will begin"

Pratiksha Ghildial
Reporting from New York

Ukraine's ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, has called the court's decision a step of "historical importance and a powerful signal to the entire world that accountability is imminent".

Punishment was "inevitable for every criminal", he insisted, adding that one day, "Putin and his accomplices will find themselves in the docks".

The BBC asked him if he had a message to neutral states.

Kyslytsya said that if they were to take a stand for Ukraine, the children and grandchildren of those countries' officials would one day open school textbooks and see that their parents and grandparents were on the "right side of history".

Image source, EPA

• "The beginning of the Russian Federation's end in its current form on the world stage," is how the Ukrainian President's adviser Mykhailo Podolyak has described the ICC's arrest warrants
• Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said the "wheels of justice are turning", adding that "international criminals will be held accountable for stealing children"
• The ICC's move is a "historic step" but "only the beginning of the long road to restore justice", Ukrainian prosecutor general Andriy Kostin said

Image source, Reuters

• Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has called the ICC's announcement "outrageous and unacceptable" describing the arrest warrants as "null and void" because Russia is not part of the ICC

• Russian children's commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova - who was also issued an arrest warrant - has reportedly responded with a sarcastic message. "It's great that the international community has appreciated this work to help the children of our country: that we don't leave them in war zones," she said, according to Russian state-owned news agency Ria Novosti.
• "Yankees, hands off Putin!", Russian parliament speaker Vyacheslav Volodin aid on messaging app Telegram and calls the warrants evidence of Western hysteria", Reuters reports.
• And foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova says the decisions of the ICC "have no meaning for our country, including from a legal point of view"

Since it is unlikely Russia will hand over any suspects, several commentators have suggested that the ICC's arrest warrant is more of a symbolic move.

But to think that is “understating its importance,” says Sir Geoffrey Nice, who was lead prosecutor at the war crimes trial of the former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic.

This is an extremely valuable step by the ICC, says Nice, because it shows that there is enough evidence that Putin “is criminal, that the war is and has been criminal”.

But Nice says Putin has to be treated by the rest of the world as a criminal: “That’s very, very important”.

If efforts by Ukraine to suspend Russia’s veto in the UN Security Council are successful, then motions might be passed to investigate crimes of aggression, says Nice, and that could lead to a trial by the ICC.

Image source, Reuters/Ukrainian Presidential Press Service

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called the ICC's arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin a "historic decision, from which historical responsibility will begin".

He says Putin and children's commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova "have officially become suspects in a war crime".

"The deportation of Ukrainian children is the illegal transfer of thousands of our children to Russian territory," he said. "It would be impossible to carry out such a criminal operation without the order of the top leader of the terrorist state".

Russia has rejected the ICC's decision and described the move as "outrageous and unacceptable".

Image source, Getty Images

Vladimir Putin is only the third serving president to have been issued an ICC arrest warrant, after Sudan's Omar al-Bashir and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.

Al-Bashir was issued with arrest warrants in 2009 and 2010 for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. They were related to a conflict that broke out in Darfur in 2003 and led to the deaths of 300,000 people.

He was later ousted as president and in 2020, Sudan's rulers agreed to hand him over to the ICC, but this hasn't happened yet.

The Gaddafi arrest warrant for crimes against humanity was issued by the ICC during anti-regime protests in 2011. The case was terminated after he was killed just months later.

James Landale
Reporting from Kyiv

The key point is that the International Criminal Court has chosen to focus on President Putin. The court could have focused on lots of other military commanders on the Russian side who bombed schools, hospitals and residential areas - all of which are accused of being war crimes.

Instead the court has decided to focus on the deportation of children, which is considered a war crime, and specifically on the responsibility of Maria Lvova-Belova, Russia's commissioner for children's rights, and Putin.

The court says the reason it is going public with these warrants is that the crimes are ongoing at the moment. In doing so it is trying to deter further crimes taking place. Whether that is successful or not remains to be seen.

This is a signal from the international community that what is taking place in Ukraine is against international law.

The court is making the allegation that Putin is responsible but it's very unlikely that he is going to travel to a location where he could be arrested.

Vladimir Putin stands accused of being responsible for war crimes in Ukraine, including the unlawful deportation of children to Russia.

ICC prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan tells the BBC's Anna Holligan that the deportation of children was inhumane and that Russia could have taken other measures to protect children - if that was its intention. The children's commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova has suggested she was helping children by evacuating them from war zones.

"If there was a danger in a particular area, move them to other parts of Ukraine where that danger was not present," he says.

"If that wasn't possible, offer to move them to third countries."

But this "accelerated process that seemed to have been implemented" by Moscow to give children a foreign nationality "is something that required attention, and this is what also gave additional impetus to the investigation", he says.

More now from the prosecutor of the ICC.

Karim Ahmad Khan tells the BBC's Anna Holligan that "no proper prosecutor will start with a target, you start with the evidence and see where the evidence leads you".

It doesn't matter if you're a head of state, in the military, or someone "low in the pecking order", no impunity is allowed, he says.

"Individuals are responsible for their actions," he adds.

"This type of crime, one doesn't need to be a lawyer, one needs to be a human being to know how egregious it is," he says, on the crimes that Vladimir Putin is accused of.

Image source, Sputnik/Mikhail Metzel/Pool via REUTERS

The ICC's arrest warrant for Putin is "to some extent symbolic" but it does "send a message", lawyer and legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg tells the BBC.

He says the message sent by the court is that Putin may be head of state today, but might not in future, and "at some point the law will catch up with you".

Rozenberg goes on to say the warrant may have a diplomatic impact on other countries that have been sitting on the fence.

He also tells the BBC that we don't know "what other arrest warrants are lined up but are sealed and haven't been published".

"The court thinks it's in the interest of justice for us to know about these particular arrest warrants," he adds.

Those who feel they can "commit a crime in the daytime, and sleep well at night, should perhaps look at history".

That's the message from Karim Ahmad Khan, prosecutor of the ICC, who's spoken to the BBC's Anna Holligan.

Khan says no-one thought Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian leader who went on trial for war crimes in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, would end up in The Hague.

But he did.

So did Liberia's Charles Taylor, who was sentenced to 50 years in jail, and Rwanda's Félicien Kabuga, who was arrested in 2020.

Some more reaction to bring you from the UK government, this time from Justice Minister Dominic Raab.

He vows to assist the ICC with forensic and investigative support and says he will be meeting with counterparts from other countries in London on Monday.

You can watch the clip below.

The ICC itself can't arrest Vladimir Putin - that's up to the countries that have signed an agreement with the court called the Rome Statute.

123 states have signed up - and Russia isn't one of them. So Putin won't be arrested or extradited from Russian territory.

But has he travelled anywhere since the war started where he could now technically be arrested?

Here's a list of his foreign trips:

• June: Tajikistan, Turkmenistan
• July: Iran
• September: Uzbekistan
• October: Kazakhstan
• November: Armenia

• December: Kyrgyzstan, Belarus

Of these, only Tajikistan is party to the statute, external.

But it's also worth mentioning that all of the places he's been - apart from Iran - are either full or associate members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, a post-Soviet group dominated by Russia.

Dominic Casciani
Legal Correspondent

The ICC has the power to charge political leaders with "waging aggressive war" - meaning an unjustified invasion not undertaken in self-defence.

But Russia is not a signatory to the court so that's not a route open to its prosecutors. Russia would also use its veto, as it has already done in relation to Ukraine, external, to stop any attempts at the UN Security Council to grant the ICC new powers in relation to that offence.

So some war crime experts had been calling for world leaders to launch an Ukraine war crimes tribunal as another means of charging Russia's leaders.

They argued that no other crime but waging aggressive war could be pinned on Putin - meaning the only people who could ever theoretically face court would be his generals and foot soldiers.

But the ICC appears to have found a way around this justice gap by dusting off the very specific offence of deporting children.

The fact that Russia is not a party to the ICC still means Putin won't be extradited anytime soon but the arrest warrant could leave the president marooned in his own country - unless he wants to voluntarily surrender to The Hague.

Nada Tawfik
reporting from New York

Some reaction to bring you now from Balkees Jarrah who is the associate international justice director at Human Rights Watch.

He tells me: "This is a big day for the many victims of crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine since 2014.

"With these arrest warrants, the ICC has made Putin a wanted man and taken its first step to end the impunity that has emboldened perpetrators in Russia’s war against Ukraine for far too long.

"The warrants send a clear message that giving orders to commit or tolerating serious crimes against civilians may lead to a prison cell in The Hague.

Image source, ICC

The International Criminal Court in The Hague has been part of the global justice system since 2002, but its concentration on African issues has led to accusations of bias.

The Rome Statute which established the court has been ratified by 123 countries, but the US is a notable absence, along with China, India and Russia.

What is the court designed to do?

To prosecute and bring to justice those responsible for the worst crimes - genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. The court has global jurisdiction.

It is a court of last resort, intervening only when national authorities cannot or will not prosecute.

Find out more about the ICC here.

Highly embarrassing for Kremlin which has always denied war crimespublished at 17:43 Greenwich Mean Time 17 March 2023

17:43 GMT 17 March 2023

Frank Gardner
BBC News, Security Correspondent

So are we about to see a penitent Vladimir Putin sitting in the dock in The Hague?

Not a chance, much as Ukraine and its friends would relish that.

Russia, like the US, is not a party to the ICC, which can only prosecute those held in countries in its jurisdiction.

Under present conditions it is unimaginable that Russia would hand over either its president or his commissioner for children’s rights to face justice.

But legally, this move still presents Putin with a problem.

He may be the head of a G20 state and about to shake hands with another world leader, China’s Xi Jinping, but he is now a wanted man and this will inevitably place restrictions on which countries he now visits.

It is also highly embarrassing for the Kremlin, which has always denied allegations of Russian war crimes, that such a powerful, pan-national body as the ICC simply does not believe Moscow's denials.