Russian President Vladimir Putin will not personally attend the August Brics meeting in South Africa. A statement from the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday said the decision was made “by mutual consent”. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will take part in the summit instead of Putin.
The summit of emerging Brics countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa will take place in Johannesburg on August 22-24.
South Africa has been under international pressure for months because the country invited the Russian President to the summit meeting of the economically strongest emerging countries despite an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The court in The Hague issued an arrest warrant against Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine in March.
Moscow warns: arrest equals “declaration of war”
South Africa’s President Ramaphosa announced on Tuesday that Russia had warned South Africa that arresting Putin would be tantamount to a “declaration of war.” South Africa therefore has “obvious problems with the implementation of a request for the arrest and extradition of President Putin”. Ramaphosa had previously left open for months whether South Africa would actually arrest Putin.
South Africa had already come under criticism in 2015 when the country refused to arrest then-Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and extradite him to the International Criminal Court.
