On the night of October 16-17, 2025, US President Donald Trump announced a new meeting between the leaders in Hungary after a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin. However, inviting Putin to a country where there is a formal arrest warrant against him once again raises questions about the real status of international law in modern geopolitics.
Budapest has already stated that the Russian president is in no danger. The country’s authorities do not intend to comply with the International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant issued in the spring of 2023. Recall that the court accuses Putin of illegally deporting children from Ukrainian territories. Hungary’s argument is simple: the country is withdrawing from the Rome Statute, on the basis of which the ICC operates. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán officially announced the withdrawal on April 3, 2025, during a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom the court has also issued an arrest warrant. Parliament
Article 127 of the Rome Statute explicitly states that a state’s withdrawal does not release it from its obligations arising during its participation, including cooperation in cases initiated before its withdrawal. This means that if Putin arrives in Hungary before June 2, 2026, the country will be obliged to detain him and hand him over to the ICC.
Article 127. Withdrawal.
- A State Party may, by written notification addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, withdraw from this Statute. The withdrawal shall take effect one year after the date of receipt of the notification, unless the notification specifies a later date.
- A State shall not be discharged, by reason of its withdrawal, from the obligations arising from this Statute while it was a Party to the Statute, including any financial obligations which may have accrued. Its withdrawal shall not affect any cooperation with the Court in connection with criminal investigations and proceedings in relation
to which the withdrawing State had a duty to cooperate and which were commenced prior to the date on which the withdrawal became effective, nor shall it prejudice in any way the continued consideration of any matter which was already under consideration by the Court prior to the date on which the withdrawal became effective.
Theoretically, the Hungarian court could cite “exceptional circumstances” and temporarily release the Russian president, but it does not have the authority to revoke the warrant.
Precedent
There is already a precedent. In 2025, Budapest ignored the ICC’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu, and there were no consequences. The court has no effective enforcement mechanisms: no sanctions, no international mandate for forceful enforcement. In fact, Hungary has set a course for political sovereignty.
How does the ICC work in reality?
It is telling that Putin has already visited countries that have ratified the Rome Statute twice — in Mongolia (2024) and Tajikistan (2025). Both ignored their obligations to the court. The situation was similar with Netanyahu. His plane crossed the airspace of Greece, North Macedonia, and Serbia — countries that are parties to the Statute. None of them took any action. Even Italy, France, and Greece, condemned for inaction by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, preferred not to exacerbate relations with Israel.
