On Tuesday, October 3, the Armenian National Assembly ratified the Rome Statute, the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin last March. The vote was 60 in favor and 22 against. With this ratification, Yerevan is now theoretically obliged to arrest the Russian president if he is on Armenian soil and extradite him to the court in The Hague.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov immediately criticized the decision as "wrong" and said he doubted that this was "correct" from the point of view of bilateral relations. He added that Armenia had "nothing better" than its alliance with Moscow, while once again condemning the "illegal" arrest warrant issued by the ICC against Putin and Russian Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova for war crimes linked to the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia. Five days earlier, Peskov had already warned against the prospect of such a ratification, calling it "extremely hostile."
Armenia's prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, insisted that ratification was not aimed at Russia, but was necessary to ensure that his country was protected by international law against Azerbaijan. On September 19, Baku won a swift military victory in Nagorno-Karabakh, leading to the fall of the self-proclaimed republic in this separatist region and the exodus of its population.
Armenia, which accuses Russia of abandoning it in the face of a much richer and better-armed adversary, is now concerned about the security of its own territory. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has repeatedly threatened to forcibly secure the Zangezur corridor, designed to link his country to the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhchivan (in southwestern Armenia) and provide a land link to Turkey. Since 2021, Azerbaijani troops have also occupied over 150 square kilometers of sovereign Armenian territory near the border, according to Yerevan, which Baku denies.
Joining the ICC "would create additional guarantees for Armenia" against Azerbaijan, said Yeghishe Kirakosyan, an official in charge of international justice affairs, at the opening of parliamentary debates on Tuesday. A possible invasion of Armenia "will fall under the jurisdiction of the ICC," which would have a deterrent effect, he explained to the elected representatives. During her visit to Yerevan on Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna welcomed Armenia's ratification. "The fight against impunity for crimes is a condition for peace and stability," she wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
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