Pre-planned famine: Putin may reportedly receive second arrest warrant
Vladimir Putin, Russian dictator (Photo: kremlin.ru)
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin may face a new war crime case. According to evidence, he pre-planned a famine in Ukraine, reports The Independent.
Pre-planned war crime
According to purchases by a Russian defense contractor, the Kremlin planned to steal a significant amount of Ukrainian grain several months before commencing a full-scale invasion.
The international legal human rights firm Global Rights Compliance (GRC) reports that following the invasion, the aggressor deliberately targeted grain-rich areas and food production infrastructure.
The Russian defense contractor procured trucks for grain transport and acquired three new 170-meter cargo ships as early as December 2021, indicating premeditated looting of Ukrainian food resources.
Terrorists began seizing Ukrainian farms less than a week after the full-scale invasion. At its peak, the aggressor was exporting 12,000 tons of grain daily from the occupation.
New order for Putin
Evidence of the pre-planned war crime will be presented to the International Criminal Court. GRC anticipates the ICC will announce another prosecution against Putin.
Global Rights Compliance partner, Catriona Murdoch, considers it "highly likely" that Russia will be found guilty of a war crime, and Putin will face another arrest order.
"Russia not only deployed a multi-pronged approach by besieging civilian populations, destroying critical infrastructure, but it also pre-planned the seizure and pillage of agricultural commodities in an insidious plan. Moscow has sparked a global food crisis and attacked Ukraine’s agriculture sector as a warfare tactic," stated Ms. Murdoch.
The market value of the stolen grain from Ukraine is estimated at $1 billion annually. Several private grain companies were forcibly incorporated into the Russian state operator.
Besides impacting Ukrainians, the terrorist country also affected millions worldwide by intensifying global food insecurity.
At the outset of the war, numerous convoys transporting grain were observed heading toward the Crimean Peninsula, and GPS trackers on trucks stolen from farmers indicated their routes through Crimea into Russia.
"Satellite images shared with The Independent by the GRC showed grain trucks at a facility in Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia bearing licence plate numbers registered in occupied Crimea. Other images show train carriages labelled 'grain' leaving Beridansk train station in Zaporizhzhia," the material states.
In a March photo, a newly built grain storage facility in Melitopol is visible.
"The investigation into grain theft ran up to August this year. GRC said that while Russia has not captured any more grain-rich territory since then, it still controls all of the Crimean peninsula – one of the main regions from which grain is transported by sea to Russia and abroad," the article adds.
Previous order
Since the full-scale invasion began, Russia has continually deported Ukrainian children to annexed Crimea, Belarus, or remote regions of Russia.
The deportations prompted the International Criminal Court in The Hague to issue an arrest order for dictator Vladimir Putin and Russia's child rights representative Maria Lvova-Belova for the unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children.
