International Criminal Court Asked To Issue Arrest Warrants For Nabiullina
- 16.07.2025, 17:42
The head of the Russian Central Bank is also guilty of war crimes.
The International Criminal Court in The Hague, which is investigating Russia's war crimes in Ukraine, has received an application for arrest warrants for key officials of Vladimir Putin's economic team - Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina and Finance Minister Anton Siluanov.
According to Financial Times, the petition to the ICC, which has already issued warrants against Putin himself, children's rights ombudsperson Maria Lvova-Belova and four high-ranking Russian generals, was filed by the NGO LexCollective, and was prepared by civil society organizations B4Ukraine and the Ukrainian Legal Advisory Group.
The authors of the statement call on the ICC to expand the investigation of Russian crimes to include the financial system used to establish control over the captured territories.
The statement names three Russian banks - the defense PSB, MRB Bank and CMRBank. Residents of Donbas and other occupied territories were offered to open accounts in them after the new "authorities" banned the Ukrainian hryvnia and forced people to convert their money into rubles.
In order to open accounts, however, people were forced to take Russian citizenship, the statement said. The authors of the document believe this is contrary to international law, as basic services require 'swearing an oath' to Russia.
They call on the ICC to take action against Siluanov, who has headed the Russian Finance Ministry for 14 years, and Nabiullina, who has led the Central Bank since 2013, for, among other things, their activities in financing the war and occupation of Ukrainian regions.
If the ICC gives the application the go-ahead, it will be the first international trial of officials responsible for the economy since the Nuremberg Tribunal, notes Frederica D'Alessandro, an international law expert at Oxford. Nuremberg was the trial of Jalmar Schacht, the Reich Minister of Economics in Adolf Hitler's government and president of the Reichsbank, who, however, was completely acquitted.