The Russian Federation warned Armenia about the “extremely negative consequences” of recognizing the Rome Statute

Russia considers the possible accession of Armenia to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court “absolutely unacceptable” and has already warned the Armenian authorities about the “extremely negative consequences” for bilateral relations in the event of such a step. This is reported by the state news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti, citing sources in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia.

On March 17, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin on charges of war crimes on the territory of Ukraine. According to the statutory documents, countries that have ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC (there are currently 123 of them) are obliged to arrest Putin if he appears on their territories. The Kremlin called the issued arrest warrant “illegal” and “legally void”, threatening to declare war on the country on whose territory the President of Russia will be detained.

On March 24, the Constitutional Court of Armenia recognized the obligations enshrined in the Rome Statute as corresponding to the country’s constitution. The next step should be ratification in the parliament.

The authorities of Armenia emphasize that they launched the ratification process at the end of 2022 with the aim of holding Azerbaijan’s leadership responsible for war crimes during the armed conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh in the future. Russia acts as a peacekeeping party in the conflict, and according to a number of experts, it is one of the main restraining factors preventing Azerbaijan from launching a large-scale military operation against Armenia.

Last Saturday, the Ministry of Defense of Russia accused the Azerbaijani military of violating the ceasefire agreement in Nagorno-Karabakh reached in 2020 between Yerevan and Baku with the mediation of Moscow. As stated in the statement of the department, a unit of the armed forces of Azerbaijan “crossed the contact line of the parties in the Shushin district, took the height… and began to engineer the post.” The Russian side demanded that the Azerbaijani military return to their previous positions.