(NewsNation) — An expert from D.C.’s Atlantic Council says U.S. President Joe Biden was “absolutely right” to call for a war crimes trial against his Russian counterpart.

But doing so could prove challenging, Brian Whitmore said Tuesday on NewsNation’s “Morning in America.”

Biden made the war crimes allegations after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to Bucha, where bodies of Ukrainian civilians have been found. Some of these bodies were seen with their hands bound behind their back.

Zelenskyy called the Russian troops’ actions ” genocide,” something Biden and other U.S. officials have stopped short of.

Russia’s response, Whitmore said, has been to deny these atrocities are happening.

“Russia is claiming that it was actually the Ukrainians that used crisis actors and this was all staged to kind of set Russia up and make Russia look bad,” Whitmore said.

U.S. officials determined that Russian forces committed war crimes earlier this month.

“If you see the execution of civilians, the bombing of maternity clinics, churches, schools, the killing of children, the killing of women while they’re giving birth— if these things are not war crimes, I don’t know what is,” Whitmore said.

After the Rwandan genocide, the United Nations Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal to “prosecute persons responsible for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law.” Since its inception in 1995, the tribunal has indicted 93 military and government officials, politicians, businessmen, as well as religious, militia and media leaders, according to its website.

Neither Russia nor the United States are signatories to the International Criminal Tribunal, but the alleged war crimes referenced by officials took place on the territory of Ukraine, which is.

“The tribunal does have jurisdiction here,” Whitmore said. “So that’s not not in question. What is in question is how do you apprehend Vladimir Putin? Right? That will be very difficult.”

Should Putin be found to have committed war crimes, his days of being a “globe-trotting leader” would be over, Whitmore said.

“He’s pretty much going to have to stay in Russia or in other friendly countries,” Whitmore said.

If he did venture into other countries, the Russian president would risk arrest.

“This is going to hurt not just President Putin, but the entire Russian elite,” Whitmore said. “They’re really fond of their jet-setting lifestyles. They’re fond of their villas in the south of France. And they’re fond of taking their family shopping and in London. These days are over now.”

Still, Whitmore remains skeptical Putin will actually be seen at the Hague.

“I would love to see it,” he added.