Putin dodges arrest warrant in Mongolia, the Kremlin touts its triumph

There was more than a whiff of self-satisfaction from the Kremlin on Wednesday, after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s trip to Mongolia at the start of the week went without a hitch — despite an International Criminal Court arrest warrant hanging over the visit.

Putin was given the red-carpet treatment, met his Mongolian counterpart and talked trade ties and bilateral relations with a country it knows needs its investment and won’t baulk at its invasion of Ukraine.

But the real bonus for the Kremlin? Its leader wasn’t detained in the process.

As a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Mongolia had a duty to arrest and detain Putin as he landed on Mongolian soil Monday night. Since March 2023, he is the subject of an ICC international arrest warrant on war crimes charges related to the unlawful deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.

The Kremlin says it doesn’t recognize the ICC warrant and, in the event of his state visit to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia chose to ignore its obligations to arrest Putin — landing itself in hot water with the court, Ukraine and its European allies, which heavily criticized the decision.

Fresh from the success of the trip — during which Putin and Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh signed agreements regarding energy and petroleum product supplies, the expansion of a power plant and environmental protection — the Kremlin said institutions like the ICC were not be able to curtail Russia’s relationships with the “global majority.”

“This whole story with the ICC … cannot and will not be a limitation in the development of Russia’s relations with partner states that are interested in developing bilateral relations and covering international contacts,” Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said, according to Google-translated comments carried by Russian state news agency Tass.

“The global majority has a much broader vision of the prospects for international cooperation than the blinkers of the ICC,” he added.

Peskov concluded that there was “great interest in the country from the global majority.”

“And we are also interested,” he said.

Analysts say that the economically-vulnerable Mongolia faced a stark choice between its obligations to comply with the ICC ruling and the need to deepen lucrative ties with its powerful neighbor Russia, on whom it is largely reliant for oil and gas supplies. Mongolia is also on the route of a planned gas pipeline connecting its top trading partners and neighbors Russia and China.

Heavily sanctioned by the West for its ongoing war against Ukraine, Russia has been looking for a way to undermine global — and Western-based — institutions. The trip to Mongolia was another way to achieve this.

Elena Davlikanova, Democracy fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis, commented in analysis on Monday that the fact that Mongolia had chosen not to meet its obligations with the ICC “is the clearest possible demonstration of Western powerlessness in the face of Kremlin realpolitik.”

“That will delight Putin, who is wholly contemptuous of rules-based politics. Russia’s approach is to win by any means, regardless of the consequences. The West and the institutions it has helped to build lack anything like the same focus or determination,” she added.

CNBC has contacted both the Kremlin and Mongolian government for further comment.

A Mongolian government spokesperson told news site Politico on Tuesday that the country’s energy dependence on Russia put it in a difficult position when it comes to its relationship with Moscow.

“Mongolia imports 95% of its petroleum products and over 20% of electricity from our immediate neighborhood, which have previously suffered interruption for technical reasons. This supply is critical to ensure our existence and that of our people,” the spokesperson said.