Following a request from the host nation, South Africa, which was in a difficult legal position over whether to detain the Russian president on an International Criminal Court warrant, Vladimir Putin has decided not to attend an economic meeting in Johannesburg next month.
Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, together known as the BRICS, will meet at a summit in August.
According to officials, Putin wants to go to the event but has been urged to skip it to avoid the diplomatic and legal repercussions of his worldwide arrest warrant.
Following a “mutual agreement,” the office of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Wednesday that Putin will not be attending the BRICS meeting, putting an end to months of rumors.
As a signatory to the Rome Statute, which created the ICC, South Africa would have been required to place him under arrest.
Putin has not visited any nations that have ratified the court’s treaty since he was indicted by the ICC in March for war crimes connected to the kidnapping of children from Ukraine, despite the fact that Moscow has rejected the warrant and Russia doesn’t recognize the authority of the international court.
The largest opposition party in South Africa has sued the government in an effort to force it to detain Putin if he enters South African soil, despite the fact that South African officials have made clear indications that they would probably not carry out the arrest warrant against him.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will represent Russia at the BRICS conference, according to a statement from Ramaphosa’s office. It was announced that the summit would be attended by all four of the other presidents, including Xi Jinping of China.
According to Ramaphosa, any attempt to detain Putin would have major repercussions for South Africa, including the possibility that Russia would consider it a “declaration of war.
In a court affidavit linked to the legal challenge launched by the opposition party, Ramaphosa stated, “I must highlight, for the sake of transparency, that South Africa has obvious problems with executing a request to arrest and surrender President Putin.
Ramaphosa stated as much in the affidavit, which was made public on Tuesday. “Russia has made it clear that arresting its sitting president would be a declaration of war,” he continued.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, refuted that during a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. Before South Africa announced that Putin would not be attending the summit, there was a call.
Nobody has made any indications to anyone, according to Peskov. “In our world, everyone understands perfectly well what an attempt to interfere with the head of the Russian state means.
To everyone present, there is no need to explain anything. Putin was reportedly resolved to attend the conference, even though the Kremlin had not yet confirmed his attendance.
According to South Africa’s deputy president, Paul Mashatile, other solutions to the arrest warrant issue have been suggested, including moving the summit to China or holding a virtual summit in which Putin could be seen from Russia on a screen.
According to Mashatile, Russia rejected those notions and demanded that Putin appear in person.
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