Last night, Russian President Vladimir Putin took time out of his busy schedule of taking over portions of Ukraine and building ties with the New Axis of Evil to fly to Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. He went there to meet with the country's president, Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh. He is scheduled to attend a state reception and engage in trade talks. But there is one wrinkle to this story that is drawing additional scrutiny. Mongolia is a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC) under the provisions of the Rome Statute. The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Putin on charges of war crimes against Ukrainians so Mongolia was technically obligated to arrest Putin as soon as he landed and turn him over to the court in The Hague. But that didn't happen. Putin was instead given a royal welcome and now the ICC is left with a black eye as they debate what next steps might be taken. (CNBC)

There's nothing remarkable about Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Mongolia on Tuesday — he's due to meet the country's leader, hold talks on developing bilateral ties and attend a gala reception.

What is unusual is that Mongolia, as a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), should have arrested the Russian president as soon as he landed on Mongolian soil Monday evening.

Putin is the subject of an international arrest warrant issued by the ICC in March 2023. The court alleged that he is responsible for war crimes, with a particular focus on the unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.

Putin was never worried about making this trip for a moment. The Kremlin had already put out a statement saying that the ICC warrant was not a concern for them and the trip would go forward as planned. There was no chance that Vladimir Putin would risk traveling there if there was even a remote chance that he might be arrested. Spokespeople for the Mongolian government further confirmed that Putin would be welcome to attend the summit and that he would not face arrest.

It's hard to blame Mongolia for choosing sides in this fashion. We need to look no further than the basic geography of the region to see why. The country shares a border with Russia to the north, and Russia's ally China to the south, and they aren't very far from the border leading into North Korea. Suddenly attempting to put some handcuffs on Russia's president and ship him off to The Hague could leave Mongolia in a very delicate and unenviable position, to put it mildly.

The real losers in this affair are the members of the ICC. The court has almost no power to begin with. They can issue all of the edicts and orders they wish, but even their own members are under no obligation to obey them as Mongolia just demonstrated. The ICC has no enforcement power if its edicts are not obeyed. None of the world's superpowers (including the United States, thankfully) signed off on the Rome Statute. The ICC is a completely globalist function that erodes the national independence of its member nations in favor of a centralized, very much socialist-leaning New World Order. 

These developments quickly led to what some international analysts are describing as "consternation" in two places in particular. One is the ICC itself, which is being shown yet again to be largely feckless. Russia is openly "mocking" the court and it's believed that the selection of Mongolia to host this meeting was not made by accident or in a vacuum. The meeting could just as easily have been held in China or Russia, but Putin wanted to be seen as thumbing his nose toward the court. The other loser in this kerfuffle is Ukraine. If it hadn't been obvious already, Zelensky shouldn't be holding his breath waiting for any sort of aid or endorsement from Mongolia. They simply have too much to lose if they begin poking the Russian bear and Ukraine has virtually nothing to offer them in return.