Putin challenges international warrant for his arrest with visit to Mongolia
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00:00Vladimir Putin given the red carpet treatment in Ulaanbaatar.
00:04By touching down in Mongolia, the Russian president is theoretically running the risk
00:08of arrest, given that his host, a member of the International Criminal Court, is obliged
00:13to detain him.
00:14But the likelihood of that happening is low, despite pressure from Western governments
00:18and human rights groups, and the Kremlin is not worried.
00:22No, there are no concerns.
00:27We have a wonderful dialogue with our friends from Mongolia.
00:30Of course, all aspects of the visit were carefully prepared.
00:36Vladimir Putin's movements have been severely curtailed since the 17th of March last year,
00:41when the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for him.
00:45The prosecutors accused him of the war crime of illegally deporting more than 16,000 Ukrainian
00:50children.
00:51One of Putin's high-profile opposition critics said Mongolia had failed in its obligations
00:57in not arresting the president.
01:00If Mongolia considers itself a country with the rule of law that aspires to be part of
01:04the civilized world, it should respect the Rome Statute that we know it has signed and
01:09ratified.
01:10Mongolia, a former Soviet satellite state, continues to plot a careful course, sandwiched
01:17as it is between two authoritarian giants, Russia and China.
01:21It relies on Moscow for fuel and for one-fifth of its electricity, both of which are indispensable
01:26in one of the world's coldest countries.
01:28Ulan Bator has in recent years turned to Western countries to reduce this dependency, but by
01:34visiting at this time Vladimir Putin is reminding Mongolia it is not yet out of Moscow's sphere
01:40of influence.