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Comment by wvoch235 | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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