President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi on Friday evening welcomed the “historic” decision of the International Criminal Court (ICC), which announced the issuance of an arrest warrant on behalf of his Russian counterpart, Volodymyr Putin, reports AFP.

The head of the Kremlin is accused of responsibility for the “war crime of illegal deportation of the population (children) and illegal transfer of the population (children) from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia,” announced the court based in The Hague, Netherlands, according to News.ro.

“Today (Friday) we have an important decision of international justice. In a case that has real prospects,” the Kyiv leader said in his speech on Friday evening, according to CNN.

“This is a historic decision that will lead to historic responsibility,” he said in a video posted on Telegram.

Zelenskyy notes that Ukrainian investigations also testify to the Kremlin’s direct involvement in the enforced disappearance of Ukrainian children in Russia.

“As part of the criminal proceedings being investigated by our law enforcement officers, 16,000 cases of forced expulsion of children have already been registered,” Zelenskyi said.

“But the real, total number of deportees may be much higher,” he estimates.

“Such a criminal operation would have been impossible without the order of the top leader of the terrorist state,” he accuses Putin.

The President of Ukraine thanked the ICC and Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan.

He condemns the forced deportation of children as “evil”.

The Ukrainian authorities have so far returned 300 deported children from Russia to Ukraine, News.ro reports.