The court, which is based in The Hague, Netherlands, also issued a warrant for the arrest of Maria Lvova-Belova, the commissioner for Children's Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation. The ICC's arrest warrant was the first issued against a leader of one of the five permanent members of the U.N. 'We will do everything needed to fend off any threats.'

'Obviously, security issues take top priority for Crimea and Sevastopol now,' he said, referring to Crimea's largest city. Instead, he stressed Friday the importance of holding Crimea. Putin has shown no intention of relinquishing the Kremlin's gains. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has demanded that Russia withdraw from the peninsula as well as the areas it has occupied since last year. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world denounced as illegal. The court specifically accused him Friday of bearing personal responsibility for the abductions of children from Ukraine during Russia's full-scale invasion of the neighboring country that started almost 13 months ago.

Putin visited an art school and a children's center, locations that appeared to have been chosen in response to the court's action on Friday. KYIV, Ukraine - Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to Crimea to mark the ninth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula's annexation from Ukraine on Saturday, the day after the International Criminal Court' issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader accusing him of war crimes.

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