Russia's Investigative Committee says it has launched legal action against the International Criminal Court prosecutor and judges involved in issuing an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin.

The committee said in a statement on Monday that it has opened a criminal case against ICC prosecutor Karim Khan and judges Akane Tomoko, Rosario Salvatore Aitala and Sergio Gerardo Ugalde Godinez. It called their actions illegal.

This comes after the ICC last week issued arrest warrants for Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Russia's commissioner for children's rights, on war crimes charges.

The court said they were responsible for the unlawful deportation and transfer of children to Russia from occupied areas of Ukraine. This drew a sharp reaction from Moscow, which called the ICC's decision "unacceptable."

The Russian investigative committee noted that heads of state are granted absolute immunity from the jurisdiction of foreign countries.

It claimed that the ICC was preparing an attack on a representative of a foreign state with the intention of complicating international relations.