If Putin attends the funeral of Pope Francis, he will be arrested

Russian President Vladimir Putin will not participate in Pope Francis, said the Kremlin Tuesday.

The concern to cancel the speculation that the Russian leader may appear despite an international arrest warrant against him.

When he was asked by the journalists if Putin had planned to participate in the burial on Saturday, the spokesman for the Kremlin Dmitry Peskov said: “No, the president does not have such plans”.

Moscow has yet to decide who will represent Russia at the funeral, he added.

Heads of state and government around the world should travel to Rome to participate in a funeral service at the Vatican and the burial of Francis in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, including the President of the United States Donald Trump.

Putin’s participation was always considered unlikely, however, after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued a stopper against him in 2023.

The arrest warrant concerned the alleged kidnapping of Ukrainian children from territories occupied by Russia in Ukraine in Russia. Moscow refers to accidents as evacuations.

If the Russian president went to Rome, the Italian authorities would be obliged to arrest him, since the country is the signatory of the Rome Statute, the founding document of the Eicc.

Putin expressed his condolences after the death of the Pope on Monday, greeting him to actively promote “the dialogue between the Orthodox and Russian Catholic churches, as well as the constructive cooperation between Russia and the Holy See”.