As much as I am against Putin… this article and headline are silly.

If Putin visited Germany he would be surrounded by his own armed security. Any attempt to arrest him would lead to a standoff that would immediately end in him leaving the country or risk a military confrontation that would almost certainly lead to WWIII.

Imagine the German chancellor, or US president were captured by Russian police, even if they justified it through some international organization they helped setup.

The headline and article should read “Putin is unable to visit Germany without making a geo political disaster.”

Unfortunately heads of nuclear states, and their inner circles, are truly above the law. The only way to enforce it, is to risk escalation.

If German chancellor or US president visited Russia, and there were enough desire to arrest them, they would be arrested. I don't see practical means to prevent it.

Similarly, if Putin visit Germany, there's no practical way he may avoid arrest if there's enough desire for it.

We however may argue that there actually will be desire to ignore the international court requirements, as in practice Germany, USA etc. don't really always follow the law. In general we can't say for sure what's going to happen. E.g. escalation is going on since at least February 24th, 2022, so the risk isn't a good argument why this can't happen.

> If German chancellor or US president visited Russia, and there were enough desire to arrest them, they would be arrested. I don't see practical means to prevent it.

Invasion. It would lead to invasion.

It'd be pretty tricky for Russia to invade Germany, based on how things are going in Ukraine

Invasion is something which may - or may not - happen afterwards. At the moment there won't be enough physical counterforce to prevent the arrest.

Attempting to invade a member of NATO provokes an armed response from all of NATO. America, France, Italy, Germany, the UK, Spain... 30 countries in all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_NATO

I think this is ultimately the wrong way to prove that the headline is incorrect. Putin will almost certainly just never go to Germany to avoid testing how hard it would be to avoid arrest.

President George W. Bush and other key members of his administration were convicted of war crimes…

https://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/05/12/bush-convict...

I expect similar results for Putin.

This is an interesting way to prevent high level diplomacy. Idi Amin is well documented to have tortured his enemies to death and then eaten the remains, yet he wasn't actually banned from travel abroad nor did the ICC seek to arrest him.

Very powerful forces want nuclear war. Better wear a hat!

Yeah, he'll be arrested just like Bush was when he was convicted of war crimes.

Love that the source is Pravda though, puts a nice touch on it.

Honestly the whole Ruling is a joke and if there was any hope of fooling anybody that these international bodies are actually independent, its gone now.

Why is there no similar ruling for Bush for Iraq and for Afghanistan? Oh wait, this the US, never mind they are the good guys.