“GET PUTIN OUT OF HERE”
Genghis Khan Square was decked out on Tuesday with huge Mongolian and Russian flags for Putin’s first visit to the country in five years.
A day earlier, a small protest had gathered there, with a handful of demonstrators holding a sign demanding “Get war criminal Putin out of here”.
Another protest planned for Tuesday was prevented by tight security from getting anywhere near the Russian leader.
They instead gathered around a block from the Monument for the Politically Repressed, which honours those who suffered under Mongolia’s decades-long Soviet-backed communist regime.
Putin’s visit is being held to mark the 85th anniversary of a decisive victory against Imperial Japan by Mongolian and Soviet forces.
Ahead of the trip, Putin pointed to a number of “promising economic and industrial projects” between the two countries in an interview with Mongolian newspaper Unuudur shared by the Kremlin.
Among those was the construction of the Trans-Mongolian gas pipeline linking China and Russia, he said.
The Russian president also said he was “interested in pursuing substantive work” towards a trilateral summit between himself, Mongolian and Chinese leaders.
“A FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE”
Mongolia’s government has not commented on the calls to arrest Putin.
But a spokesman for President Khurelsukh took to social media on Sunday to deny reports that the ICC had sent a letter asking it to execute the warrant when he visits.
Russia does not recognise the jurisdiction of the ICC.
And Amnesty International warned on Monday that Mongolia’s failure to arrest Putin could further undermine the ICC’s legitimacy, while emboldening the ex-KGB spy, in power for almost a quarter of a century.
“President Putin is a fugitive from justice,” Altantuya Batdorj, executive director of Amnesty International Mongolia, said in a statement.
“Any trip to an ICC member state that does not end in arrest will encourage President Putin’s current course of action and must be seen as part of a strategic effort to undermine the ICC’s work.”
