WARSAW: Poland warned Russia’s President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday against travelling through its airspace for a summit in Hungary with U.S. President Donald Trump, stating it could be forced to execute an international arrest warrant if he did.
Trump said last week that he planned to meet Putin in the Hungarian capital Budapest as part of his efforts to broker an end to the war in Ukraine.
The International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, issued an arrest warrant against Putin in 2023, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. Russia does not recognise the ICC’s jurisdiction and denies the allegations.
“I cannot guarantee that an independent Polish court won’t order the government to escort such an aircraft down to hand the suspect to the court in The Hague,” Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told Radio Rodzina.
The ICC warrant obligates the court’s member states to arrest Putin, if he sets foot on their territory.
“I think the Russian side is aware of this. And, therefore, if this summit is to take place, hopefully with the participation of the victim of the aggression, the aircraft will use a different route,” Sikorski said.
Hungary, whose Prime Minister Viktor Orban maintains warm relations with Russia, has said it would ensure that Putin can enter the country for the summit and return home afterwards.
To avoid travelling over Ukraine, however, the Russian delegation would need to fly through the airspace of at least one European Union nation.
All EU countries are members of the ICC, though Hungary is in the process of leaving the court.
NATO member Poland has been among Kyiv’s staunchest supporters following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
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