Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Mongolia late Monday for his first state visit to a member of the International Criminal Court since it issued a warrant for his arrest in March 2023.

The court accused Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights of being personally responsible for the “unlawful deportation” and transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia.

In advance of Putin’s trip, the ICC stated that Mongolia was obligated to arrest Putin, but Mongolia is heavily dependent on Russia for fuel, and an arrest was considered extremely unlikely.

Russia has shrugged off the possibility.

“There are no worries. We have a great dialogue with our friends from Mongolia,” Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesperson, told reporters Friday, noting that “all aspects of the visit have been thoroughly prepared.”

Putin was greeted by what appeared to be a Mongolian military guard at the airport and was spending the night in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, a sign that he is comfortable being in the country.

Putin’s visit Tuesday, at the invitation of Mongolian President Ukhnaa Khurelsukh and in defiance of the ICC arrest warrant, serves as a reminder that Russia still commands strategic sway over its southern neighbor despite efforts to hedge.

With the visit, “Putin gets a symbolic win for sure,” said Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. For Mongolia, he said, the visit shows that the need to maintain the relationship with Russia outweighs the country’s pledge in 2002 when it signed the Rome Statute ratifying its membership in the ICC.

He added that Russia’s adversaries would have to “think twice” about the narrative that “Putin is pariah, he’s ostracized, and whenever there is an ICC warrant for a country that’s ratified the Rome Statute, that he will be arrested.”

The international court, based in The Hague, issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest last year, accusing him of committing war crimes with the abduction and deportation of Ukrainian children. The court also issued a warrant for Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova.

The ICC has no enforcement mechanism. Countries that have signed on to the court are supposed to detain those who are subject to its arrest warrants. Russia is not a signatory to the court and has consistently rejected its authority.

Mongolia, a landlocked democracy wedged between Russia and China, treads a careful political line in balancing between its two far more powerful neighbors. That has included taking a neutral stance on the war in Ukraine.

Although it has looked to the West to ease some of its geopolitical pressure, hosting high-level guests such as French President Emmanuel Macron, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and British Foreign Secretary David Cameron, it is also economically reliant on its far larger neighbors.

Mongolia shares a 2,100-mile border with Russia and relies on the giant gas-producing neighbor for 95% of its fuel. It tries to maintain steady ties with Moscow to help balance relations with China, which also holds considerable influence.