Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Mongolia on Tuesday (September 3, 2024) but there are no signs the host country will bow to calls to arrest him on an international warrant for alleged war crimes stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The visit is Mr. Putin’s first to a member country of the International Criminal Court since the court issued the warrant nearly 18 months ago. Ahead of his trip, Ukraine called on Mongolia to hand Mr. Putin over to the Hague court, and the European Union expressed concern that Mongolia might not execute the warrant. Mr. Putin’s spokesman said last week that the Kremlin was not concerned.
The warrant puts the Mongolian government in a difficult position. After decades of living under communism with close ties to the Soviet Union, it transitioned to democracy in the 1990s and has forged ties with the U.S., Japan and other new partners. But it remains economically dependent on its two larger and more powerful neighbors, Russia and China. Russia supplies most of the landlocked country’s fuel and a large amount of its electricity.
The ICC accuses Mr Putin of being responsible for the abduction of children from Ukraine, where fighting has raged for the past two-and-a-half years. Member countries are required to detain suspects if an arrest warrant is issued, but Mongolia needs to maintain good relations with Russia and the court has no mechanism to enforce its warrants.
The Russian leader was greeted on the main square in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, by an honour guard dressed in bright red and blue uniforms styled after the personal guards of Genghis Khan, the 13th-century founder of the Mongol Empire.
A crowd of spectators watched from behind temporary barriers as Putin and Mongolian President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa climbed the red-carpeted stairs of the government palace and bowed before a statue of Genghis Khan before entering the building for the meeting.
Police detained a small group of protesters trying to hoist a Ukrainian flag ahead of the reception. Five others gathered a few blocks west of the square holding anti-Putin banners and a Ukrainian flag but dispersed after hearing about the arrests.
The two governments signed agreements for a feasibility study and design for upgrading a power plant in Ulaanbaatar and ensuring a steady supply of aviation fuel to Mongolia. Mr Putin also outlined plans to develop a rail system between the two countries.
The two governments signed agreements for feasibility studies and designs for upgrading a power plant in Ulaanbaatar to ensure supplies of aviation fuel to Mongolia. Another agreement involved an environmental study of a river where Mongolia hopes to build a hydropower plant, which Russia says would pollute Lake Baikal on the Russian side. Putin also outlined plans to develop a rail system between the two countries.
He invited the Mongolian president to attend a summit of the BRICS nations – a group that includes Russia and China, among others – in the Russian city of Kazan at the end of October. Khurelsukh accepted, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
On Monday (September 1, 2024), the EU said it had shared its concern with Mongolian authorities that the ICC warrant could not be executed.
European Commission spokeswoman Nabila Masrali said “Mongolia, like all other countries, has the right to develop its international relations in accordance with its interests.” But she added that Mongolia has been a party to the ICC since 2002, “which carries with it legal obligations.”
More than 50 Russians outside the country signed an open letter urging the Mongolian government to “immediately detain Vladimir Putin upon his arrival.” They included Vladimir Kara-Murza, who was released from a Russian prison in August as part of the largest East-West prisoner swap since the Cold War.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, called the warrant “illegal” in an online statement on Tuesday and described those trying to enforce it as “madmen.”
Mr Putin, on his first visit to Mongolia in five years, attended ceremonies to mark the 85th anniversary of a joint Soviet and Mongolian victory over Japanese forces when the latter seized control of Manchuria in northeastern China. Thousands of soldiers on both sides were killed in months of fighting in 1939 over the location of the border between Manchuria and Mongolia.
“I am very happy about Putin’s visit to Mongolia,” said retired economist Yansanjav Demdendorj, referring to Russia’s role in the war against Japan. “If we … think about the battle, it was the Russians who helped liberate Mongolia.”
Uyangaa Tshoggerel, who supports the protests, said her country was a democracy that did not tolerate dictatorship and accused Putin of “wildly humiliating and embarrassing Mongolia before the world.”
Mr Putin has made several foreign trips in recent months to counter international isolation over the invasion of Ukraine. He visited China in May, North Korea and Vietnam in June and went to Kazakhstan for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in July.
But Kenneth Roth, former director of Human Rights Watch, called Putin’s visit to Mongolia a “sign of weakness” and wrote on X that the Russian leader “can only afford to visit a country with a tiny population of 3.4 million that lives in Russia’s shadow.”
Last year, the South African government lobbied against Putin coming to Johannesburg for the BRICS summit in 2023, which he eventually attended via video link. ICC member South Africa was condemned by activists and its main opposition party in 2015 when it did not arrest then-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir during his visit to an African Union summit.
Enkhgerel Seded, who studies at a university in Moscow, said that historically, countries with friendly relations do not arrest heads of state during official visits.
He said, “Our country has an obligation to the international community. But … I think it would not be appropriate to make an arrest in this case either.”