The International Criminal Court says it is not “frightened” by the fact that Russia has declared its chief prosecutor wanted, the BBC reports, citing News.ro. The decision comes two months after the ICC’s Karim Khan issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin.

In a statement on Saturday, the court said the move was an attempt to undermine its “legal mandate to ensure accountability for the most serious crimes”.

Russia, which is not a member of the ICC, previously called Putin’s arrest warrant “null and void.”

In March, British lawyer Karim Khan issued an arrest warrant for President Putin. He declared that the head of the Kremlin is responsible for war crimes, and focused his claims on the illegal deportation of children from Ukraine to Russia.

An arrest warrant was also issued for Maria Lvova-Belova, the Russian commissioner for children’s rights, on similar charges.

More than 16,000 children are believed to have been forcibly transported from Ukraine to Russia since the war began, according to officials in Kyiv.

The International Criminal Court then stated that there are reasonable grounds to believe that both Putin and Lvov-Belova bear individual criminal responsibility.

For its part, the Kremlin’s Investigative Committee announced this week that it would open an investigation into Khan for “prosecuting an apparently innocent person.”

In a statement Saturday, the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, said it was “aware of and deeply concerned about the unjustified coercive measures allegedly being used against ICC officials.”

Calling the measures “unacceptable”, the Court said it would not be prevented from continuing to “execute its independent mandate”.

Khan has not yet commented on the actions against him.

Meanwhile, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba, became the subject of a separate investigation after the alleged meeting between Lvova and Belova in Moscow.

Reuters quoted the Russian as saying the discussion was “constructive and sincere.”

However, human rights groups and senior officials deny this, suggesting the meeting was inappropriate.

“Ukrainian victims deserve to see Lvova-Belova behind bars in The Hague, not in a meeting with high-ranking UN officials,” said Balkis Jarra, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s International Justice Program.

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