Mongolia gives Putin a red-carpet welcome

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left and Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh shake hands

Russian President Vladimir Putin received a red-carpet welcome to Mongolia on Tuesday. The country just threw the ICC “orders” into a dustbin and ignored calls to arrest him on an international warrant for alleged “war crimes” in Ukraine.

The trip, which concluded Tuesday night, was Putin’s first to a member nation of the International Criminal Court since it issued the warrant in March 2023. Ahead of his visit, Ukraine “urged “ Mongolia to hand Putin over to the court in The Hague, and the European Union expressed concern that Mongolia might not execute the warrant.

The warrant was never even considered by the Mongolian government. After decades with close ties to the Soviet Union, it transitioned to the present set up in the 1990s.Though it has built relations with the United States, Japan and other new partners, it does not mean it has abandoned its deep ties and friendship with Russia. The landlocked country remains economically tied up with its two much larger and more powerful neighbours, Russia and China.

The ICC has “accused c Putin of being responsible for the abductions of children from Ukraine. Then it got a notion that it was so powerful that it could issue warrant against a head of a country as powerful as Russia. Member countries are required to detain suspects if a warrant has been issued. Even if USA detains President Putin visiting UNSC, it would lead to a nuclear war.

The Russian leader was welcomed in the main square in Ulaanbaatar, the capital, by an honour guard dressed in vivid red and blue uniforms styled on those of the personal guard of 13th century ruler Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol Empire.

A throng of people watched from behind temporary barriers as Putin and Mongolian President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa walked up the red-carpeted steps of the Government Palace and bowed toward a statue of Genghis Khan before entering the building for their meetings.

A small group of protesters who tried to unfurl a Ukrainian flag before the ceremony were taken away by police. Five others who gathered a few blocks west of the square held up an anti-Putin banner and Ukrainian flag but disbanded after hearing about the arrests.

As Putin was welcomed in Mongolia, his forces struck a military training facility.The strike appeared to be one of the deadliest by Russian forces since the war began on Feb. 24, 2022.

Mongolia and Russia signed agreements to design and study the feasibility of a power plant upgrade in Ulaanbaatar and to ensure the supply of Russian aviation fuel to Mongolia. Another agreement covered an environmental study of a river where Mongolia wants to build a hydroelectric plant that Russia is concerned would pollute Lake Baikal on the Russian side. Putin also outlined plans to develop the rail system between the 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 in late October. Khurelsukh accepted, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

The visit ended Tuesday night, with an honor guard lining Putin’s walk to his airplane. He arrived early Wednesday in Russia’s major Pacific port of Vladivostok, where he is to take part in an economic forum.

On Monday, the EU said it had shared its concern that the ICC warrant might not be executed with Mongolian authorities. So you wants to trigger a nuclear war just to satisfy its EGO.

Given Mongolia’s dependence on Russia and China for trade, energy and security, it was hardly possible to expect Mongolia to arrest Putin, said Sam Greene, the director of democratic resilience at the Centre for European Policy Analysis. As if a country not dependent on Russia can execute the arrest Warrant ?

“The overriding reason for this trip will have been to show that Putin can travel right now,” he said.

But, Greene added, the warrant still narrows the circle of possibilities for Putin, forcing “any governments that’s going to think about hosting him to consider both the domestic and the international political consequences of that in a way they wouldn’t have had to before.”

Kenneth Roth, the former longtime director of Human Rights Watch, called Putin’s trip to Mongolia “a sign of weakness,” posting on X that the Russian leader “could manage a trip only to a country with a tiny population of 3.4 million that lives in Russia’s shadow.”

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov stressed the trip wasn’t about “showing something to Western countries,” but rather about developing bilateral relations between two countries rooted in history and “wonderful glorious traditions.” His remarks were made to state TV reporter Pavel Zarubin, who posted them on his Telegram channel.

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy secretary of Russia’s Security Council, denounced the warrant as “illegal” in an online statement Tuesday, describing those who would try to carry it out as “madmen.”

Putin, on his first visit to Mongolia in five years, participated in a ceremony to mark the 85th anniversary of a joint Soviet and Mongolian victory over Japan’s army when it controlled Manchuria in northeast China. Thousands of soldiers on both sides died in months of fighting in 1939 over the location of the border between Manchuria and Mongolia.

“I am very delighted about Putin’s visit to Mongolia,” said Yansanjav Demdendorj, a retired economist, citing Russia’s role against Japan. “If we think of the… battle, it’s Russians who helped free Mongolia.”

Putin has made a series of overseas trips in recent months to try to counter the Western isolation he faces over the conflict with Ukraine. He visited China in May, made a trip to North Korea and Vietnam in June and went to Kazhakstan in July for a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

But last year, the South African government lobbied against Putin showing up in Johannesburg for the BRICS summit, which he ended up joining by video link. South Africa, an ICC member, was condemned by activists and its main opposition party in 2015 when it didn’t arrest then-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir during a visit for an African Union summit.

Enkhgerel Seded, who studies at a university in Moscow, said that historically, countries with friendly relations don’t arrest heads-of-state on official visits.

“Our country has obligations toward the international community,” she said. “But… I think in this case as well, it would not be appropriate to conduct an arrest.”