I don't think Putin is in a hurry to surrender himself to the ICC, and nobody is going to arrest him overseas, because as a head of state he has a total diplomatic immunity.
Full disclosure: I'm fully in support of Ukraine in this Russian-expansionist war. However this is just a cold hard fact. Me pointing it out in no way whatsoever even suggests that I'm pro-russian. Which I'm absolutely not.
> Appealing the Pre-Trial Chamber’s decision last year, lawyers for Jordan argued that because al-Bashir was a head of state at the time of his visit he was immune from arrest. But in its recent ruling, ICC judges concluded “there is no Head of State immunity under customary international law vis-a-vis an international court.”
He doesn't, because he committed war crimes. Simple as.
His diplomatic immunity will lapse once he's no longer the head of state however.
EDIT: Pretty sure that they are personas-non-grata in each other's country at this point, which is a specifically described scenario in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
So no, of course Zelensky couldn't enter Russia and expect nothing to happen. An Putin couldn't enter Ukraine with the expectation that his immunity will hold.
But both of them could enter any 3rd country with a reasonable expectation of that.
Whatever your answer will be, replace "Zelensky" in it with "Putin" and see if you would still stand behind it.
That sounds… extreme. Wikipedia lists several examples [1] where a diplomat's immunity was waived by their home country since they committed offense unrelated to their function. And the same seems to be true for head states committing war crimes, as it is unrelated to their function [2].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomatic_immunity
[2]: https://www.diplomacy.edu/blog/are-international-immunities-...
This moves the current situation further down the spectrum from "minor expansionist war we can pull out of and keep our heads on our bodies" and closer toward "potential existential crisis" from the point of view of Putin and his close buddies.
The ICC is basically saying to Putin that any future successor can earn a few (more than they already would) brownie points with the west (or at least the parts of it that have the most interest alignment with the ICC) by turning him in. In practice this does nothing other than make Putin less likely (not that he was very likely to begin with) to ever voluntarily relinquish office except on his deathbed (see also: Fidel Castro).
Putin eventually stepping down in favor of someone who will at least marginally improve relations with the west (not hard to imagine, over the years plenty of dictators have given up power to "moderate" successors in order to head off potential power struggles) would be good. This makes that marginally less likely (not that it was particularly likely in the sort/medium term).
Edit: INB4 someone inevitably tries to construe any of this as being pro-russia, it's not.
I feel like this is over-stating the previous likelihood
It's always possible to come up with reasons to not act because acting might rock the boat. It's appeasement. Why should the ICC appease Putin?
Your three options are Putin, Putin's Stooge and "whoever overthrows Putin"
I think the middle option is valuable because it gives Putin's less expansionist and more trade inclined henchmen an opportunity to leverage fear of the third toward an outcome that is good for everyone but Putin but less bad than the third.
3a - Someone western minded
3b - Someone even more expansionist. Like some ultra-nationalist. Or the head of the Wagner group.
IMO, that still means you reduced the world by one ultra-nationalist expansionist who had sufficient connections and charisma to get into power. And that's still a win, even if there's still more of them out there.
That's not what I said. We shouldn't do any appeasement whatsoever.
Just pointing out to the fact that if someone overthrows Putin, it's not necessarily going to be a guy who thinks that the war in Ukraine is stupid.
I'll take a dice roll at a new devil. We know the current one is pretty bad and isn't likely to improve on his own.