The International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, 11 March 2025. Photo: EPA/ROBIN UTRECHT
Switzerland has agreed to grant Vladimir Putin immunity from prosecution if he travels to the country for in-person talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, AFP reported on Tuesday.
According to Swiss Foreign Minister Inhazio Cassis, the Swiss government would use “a rule for granting immunity to a person for whom an international arrest warrant has been issued” that applies “when that person is coming for a peace conference and not for personal reasons”.
Geneva has been mooted as one of the possible locations for the bilateral talks between Putin and Zelensky that are being actively pursued by US President Donald Trump following his meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday and his meeting with Zelensky in Washington on Monday.
French President Emmanuel Macron has also reportedly backed the choice of Geneva for the talks between the two men, whose last and sole face-to-face meeting was in late 2019 as part of the Normandy Format Summit held in Paris with Macron and then-German chancellor Angela Merkel.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an international arrest warrant for Putin and his Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova Belova in 2023 for their alleged responsibility for the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia, which the ICC believed amounted to a war crime.
Switzerland is a signatory to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC, and unless it grants Putin immunity from prosecution, would be legally obliged to arrest him if he set foot on Swiss soil.
