Empty words and strategic disadvantage
Putin deserves to be tried, and Russia should pay reparations, but neither demand is sensible
There is a time and a place to strategize through a moral lens (see my last post). But there are limits, too. Vladimir Putin is an evil war criminal. The ICC's decision to issue a warrant for his arrest was still probably mistaken. Russia has caused grave harm to Ukraine's civilian infrastructure, and has, of course, launched a cruel, unjustified war; but calls for reparations are probably mistaken, too.
They are, again, not morally mistaken. Putin should be tried and punished; Russia has a duty to rebuild Ukraine. But they're strategic blunders, because they will make it harder to end the war. Putin has, at present, no reason to negotiate in good faith. He will not negotiate in good faith until forced to do so in order to avoid military defeat, or some internal threat to his own power. (He may negotiate in bad faith if Russia manages a sudden advance; Russian "ceasefires" are usually intended to consolidate gains.) In other words, military victory of some kind is a precondition to peace. At the very least, Ukraine probably needs to reach Melitopol or Berdyansk.
But in such a case, of course, ICC warrants and demands for reparations make negotiating harder. Right now, they are completely unrealistic. But if Putin's regime is seriously threatened, and the Russian military on the brink of collapse, Putin may indeed begin to fear for his own safety—who knows, he might even be forced to flee. He certainly won't be able to accept the humiliation of reparation. Warrants and reparations, in other words, will simply back him into a dangerous corner, one that may appear very distant now but might loom larger if true Russian defeat does occur. That probably raises the risk of nuclear use, but it also just makes any peace agreement harder.
And to suppose the impossible for a moment: it's not clear that any good would come either from a conviction or from reparations payments. If Russia somehow collapses, and either of those comes to pass, it will lead only to hatred and resentment. The German post-WWII conversion is the exception: the German response to WWI is more common.
A war is best ended by manipulating incentives: make the cost of continuance high, the cost of peace low. A good strategist offers carrots, too, not sticks only. Peace can't come before victory—but peace after victory will be easier without humiliating and risky demands, however justified.