Certain guests can prove particularly embarrassing for their hosts. On Monday, September 2, Mongolia was set to become the first International Criminal Court (ICC) member state to receive Vladimir Putin since the court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president, in March 2023. The risk of arrest was very remote, with the visit having been officially announced by the Mongolian government, which has thereby contravened its obligations as a signatory to the Rome statute and tarnished its image as a democracy that is committed to international norms. The Kremlin’s spokesman said he had “no concerns” about the visit. “We have an excellent rapport with our partners from Mongolia,” said Dmitry Peskov. “Of course, all aspects of the president’s visit have been carefully prepared.”
Officially, the head of the Russian Federation came to take part in celebrations marking the 85th anniversary of the Soviet victory at the Battle of Khalkhin-Gol, from May to September 1939, in which Russians and Mongolians pushed back a Japanese offensive in the far east of Mongolia. In fact, with this trip to Ulaanbaatar, Putin seems just as intent on demonstrating the weaknesses of international law in the face of Russian power as on hampering Mongolia’s rapprochement efforts with the West.
In March 2023, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president, based on the deportation of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation. South Africa, which is also a party to the ICC’s foundational Rome Statute, dodged Putin’s request to attend a BRICS summit in Johannesburg, in August 2023, by convincing him to participate via videoconference.
Caught between two giants
Mongolia has “an obligation to cooperate,” said ICC spokesman Fadi El Abdallah, while the Ukrainian foreign ministry has urged Mongolia to “transfer Putin” to The Hague. The embarrassment is all the harsher given that, when Mongolia ratified the ICC’s statutes in 2002, it recalled the Stalinist purges that left tens of thousands dead on its territory between 1937 and 1939. “Putin, who couldn’t hate our foreign policy more, is making this visit to get Mongolia removed from the ICC. Our foreign minister should be fired. Such political renunciation is unacceptable!” said a former mayor of Ulaanbaatar, Erdeniin Bat-Üül.
However, squeezed between the two authoritarian giants that are Russia and China, the country has found that it doesn’t have the same room for maneuver as South Africa. Mongolia generates only 80% of the electricity it consumes, using highly polluting coal, and has to import the remaining 20% from Russian power plants.
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