The International Criminal Court in The Hague has issued an arrest warrant against Russian President Vladimir Putin for the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children.

“There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes, for having committed the acts directly, jointly with others and/or through others and for his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts, or allowed for their commission, and who were under his effective authority and control, pursuant to superior responsibility,” the ICC said.

A separate warrant was issued against Russian children’s rights commissioner Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova.

Russia isn’t part of the ICC and has said it doesn’t recognise its jurisdiction. However, the warrant will make it harder for Putin to travel to countries that have signed up with the ICC as they are obliged to arrest anyone indicted by the court.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba welcomed the news, stating that “international criminals will be held accountable for stealing children and other international crimes.”

Putin is only the third serving president to have been served an ICC arrest warrant since the international court was founded in 2002, after Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.