Now, lets talk about Putin’s visit to South Africa. So Putin was scheduled to visit a BRICS summit in South Africa despite the ICC arrest warrant. South Africa claimed they wouldn’t enforce the arrest warrant. People got very mad. South Africa, in response, declared that Putin would only participate in the summit remotely, where the arrest warrant couldn’t be enforced.

Now this was obviously a way to bypass the ICC warrant, and the stunt did not go well in the general public. In the next election the ANC, the governing party at the time, lost their parliamentary majority for the first time since South Africa became a democracy in 1994. Now South Africans had several other reasons to ditch the ANC, but this stunt certainly didn’t help.

In a great many other countries, including nearly all Western countries, the warrant is still in effect.

And even in the South African case: the government's decision was considered quite tenuous, which is why Putin cancelled his visit, in was was considered to be a major diplomatic setback at the time. So at the end of the day -- the warrant still had significant effect, and fulfilled its purpose.