When Vladimir Putin sets foot on Mongolian soil on September 2, he should be arrested as a war criminal and handed over to prosecutors at The Hague, the seat of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands.

At least that's the unsurprising opinion of Kyiv as expressed to Mongolia, an ICC member, ahead of the Russian leader’s trip to the northeast Asian country for the 85^th anniversary of a joint Soviet-Mongolian victory over Japanese forces.

The chances of such an arrest, however, seem next to nil.

The Kremlin told reporters in Moscow on August 30 that it had "no worries" about the visit.

"We have an excellent rapport with our partners from Mongolia," Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, adding: "Of course, all aspects of the president’s visit have been carefully prepared."

The ICC has an outstanding warrant for the arrest of Putin, with prosecutors alleging that since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine started, he has committed a war crime by failing to stop the unlawful deportation of children from the latter to the former. The court has also issued a warrant for the arrest of Russia's commissioner for children's rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.

The trip will be the first time Putin has set foot in an ICC member state since the body issued the warrant.

A spokesperson for the ICC—which has no enforcement mechanism to make arrests itself, instead relying on member countries—told the BBC on August 30 that Mongolian officials "have the obligation" to abide by ICC regulations”. However, they clarified that this did not necessarily mean an arrest had to take place.

Fadi el-Abdallah, the spokesperson, told the broadcaster that court States Parties, including Mongolia, "have the obligation to cooperate in accordance with the Chapter IX of the Rome Statute", the agreement that created the court.

The agreement states that in some circumstances, states may be exempted from the obligation to carry out an arrest where the arrest would force a state to "breach a treaty obligation" with another state or where it would violate "diplomatic immunity of a person or property of a third state".

"In case of non-cooperation, ICC judges may make a finding to that effect and inform the Assembly of States Parties of it. It is then for the Assembly to take any measure it deems appropriate," el-Abdallah was also reported as saying.

Moscow has previously denied the allegations over the deportation of Ukrainian children, calling the warrants "outrageous".